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THE LETTERS WHICH 
NEVER REACHED HIM 


NEW YORK 
E. P. DUTTON & CO. 


1904 


* 


\ 


THE LETTERS WHICH NEVER 
REACHED HIM 

LETTER I 

Vancouver, August 1899. 

YOUR letter which awaited me here has made 
me very happy — all the more so because it 
does not sound so bad as I had feared. It 
would be almost humiliating if Peking with- 
out me were not to appear a trifle greyer and 
lonelier to you, and I should like you to miss 
me a little — but not too much. It is all a 
question of shadings, and you, who have studied 
colouring on the softest and most mellow of 
old Chinese brocades, have probably learnt 
there to find out the very tint which would be 
welcome to me. 

And therefore I thank you for your letter 
and for so much else. 


A 


2 


THE LETTERS 


Our short holidays in Japan have passed 
with that alarming rapidity which is the pro- 
perty of good times. I will wisely abstain from 
sending youabelated description of our journey, 
as you know Madame Chrysantheme’s home 
so much better than I do. I will only tell you 
that I thought much of you there, for, thanks 
to all that you had told me and through the 
books you had lent me, I already knew Japan 
when I got there. It seemed like meeting 
many old friends. The tea-house girls, who 
served the rickshaw coolies with the same 
graceful politeness as us, the labourers who 
waded knee-deep in the muddy rice-fields; 
and, during rainy weather, covered themselves 
with reed-mats, whose sticking-out points gave 
them the appearance of big, busy hedgehogs : 
they all seemed like figures out of a well-known 
picture-book to whom one is inclined to say, 
‘Oh yes, that’s you and you — I am pleased to 
meet you once more.’ 

But the most delightful meetings I had in 
Japan were those with the many flowers, 
whom I had already known elsewhere as 
japonicum or japonica, and whom I now saw 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 3 

in their own home, the same, but so much 
sweeter and more beautiful — just as truly nice 
people are always the nicest in their own 
house. 

Japan is the first and only foreign country 
in which I should like to settle and to stay 
‘ for good/ or rather ‘ for better for worse/ 
which means so much more. 

On our last morning at Yokohama two 
things happened without which Japan would 
not have been quite Japan. We were awakened 
by an earthquake, and we saw Fuji. Till then 
the big white gentleman had surlily worn a cap 
of clouds, but just when we were being rowed 
out to the steamer the mist lifted and we saw 
the snow-white peak, looking just as impro- 
bable in reality as in the thousands of Japanese 
pictures. And I thought how natural it is 
that the lonely high mountain-tops are so 
given to retiring behind cloudy veils, for even 
to younger and lesser beings than they the 
sight of the world is apt to become a bore. 
Out here they say that he who sees Fuji on 
the day of his departure will come back to 
Japan. You know that I am just a little 


4 


THE LETTERS 


superstitious — -faute de mieux — so now I will 
see if my nomad life ever takes me again to 
that land of flowers and smiles. 

The first person whom we met on board our 
steamer was Bartolo, the great concession- 
hunter, who stayed so many months at the 
Hotel de Pekin, during a time when you were 
gone on one of your mysterious expeditions 
to some unknown place in one of the darkest 
parts of China, whose existence one has to 
take for granted. In those days Bartolo 
wished to provide the non-existing Chinese 
army with a gun of his own invention ; later 
on he tried to sell to the Chinese Government 
a plan for the irrigation of the Gobi desert. 
He who has heard some of the many devices 
which Bartolo and others like him untiringly 
invented for the benefit of the Chinese, can 
understand the deep pity with which you used 
to say, ‘ Poor, poor China.’ You showed, how- 
ever, far less sympathy with the different 
foreign ministers, who all possessed some 
Bartolos by whom they were harassed with 
demands of political support for their fantastic 
concessions. In the opinion of the sanguine 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 5 

speculators the ministers never did enough for 
them, and these feelings often found vent in 
newspaper attacks and in parliamentary inter- 
polations. 

Bartolo was all beaming smiles, and told us 
that he had obtained his newest concession, 
not the one of the Gobi desert, but a more 
recent one for the right of exploitation of ruby 
mines. At first he had been somewhat doubt- 
ful for which Chinese province to claim this 
privilege, Kwangsu or Kwangtung, as he did 
not feel positive in which of them rubies were 
found ; finally he had decided on Kwangtung, 
after looking the matter up a little in Richt- 
hofen’s book, that gospel of all the disciples 
of the new faith : ‘Salvation through China.’ 

My brother and I were astonished at 
Bartolo’s having obtained this concession so 
quickly, all the more as just lately the Chinese 
have established a board for mining concerns, 
whose foremost duty it is to drag such questions 
into endless length. But Bartolo told us that 
the most influential members of this board 
were old Tsu and young Tsi — for young Tsi he 
procured the acquaintance of a foreigner from 


6 


THE LETTERS 


Tientsin, as obliging as she was beautiful, and 
to one of the ‘ second wives ’ of old Tsu he 
sent, under cover of night, a golden tea-set. 
After that it had all been smooth sailing, and 
the Chinese only made a few little difficulties 
about his claim, pro forma , and to * save their 
faces/ 

Bartolo now is on his way to England, to 
float a great joint-stock company for the 
working of the ruby mines, from which he 
expects millions. He had provided himself 
for the voyage with a lot of tinned goods and 
special little luxuries, and at all meals on 
board he sent them freely round to his different 
friends. He is at bottom very good-natured, 
and he seemed to wish that we all should 
partake of his future riches. 

It always makes me sad to hear people talk 
with such evident illusions about all the wealth 
they intend getting out of China, when I 
remember the infinite, heart-breaking poverty 
which I have seen there, worse than anywhere 
else in the world. Where are all the riches 
to come from ? But perhaps I am prejudiced, 
as I only know the hopelessly miserable north 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 7 


of China : possibly rubies do pave the roads 
in Kwangtung, about which I know as little 
as Bartolo. 

I must now end this letter, for we are going 
out into the woods, but I shall write more to 
you from here, for we intend staying some 
days, that I may rest from the voyage and 
gather strength for our further journey. This 
first greeting is only to tell you that I have 
landed safely on the other side of the great 
waters. And now my imagination, which has 
ever been an audacious architect, builds up 
a gigantic bridge spanning the ocean from 
here to China, and a thousand thoughts and 
memories cross that bridge and travel to you. 

LETTER II 

Vancouver, August 1899. 

My letter of yesterday, dear friend, dealt so 
exclusively with Bartolo, that you might be 
led to fancy that we had been the only 
passengers with him on that long voyage, but 
I will go on writing to-day and tell you about 
our other travelling companions. 


8 


THE LETTERS 


Two Japanese interested me most. They 
were taking a wee bit of home with them- 
selves, in the shape of a box, two feet square, 
and filled with earth, in which stones and 
dwarfed trees represented a miniature garden. 
They cared for this small garden with touching 
anxiety. Both evidently suffered much from 
sea-sickness, and their sallow complexions had 
gradually acquired queer greenish and purplish 
tints, but no matter how ill they were, as soon 
as a sunbeam stole through the heavy grey 
clouds, they crawled out of their cabin and 
brought their little box on deck, and as soon 
as the wind rose they tottered down again, 
carrying their wee bit of Japan with them. 
They were going to America to study, and on 
the way each and all served as object-lessons. 
They evidently were filled with a great sense 
of responsibility, especially for the time allotted 
to them, a responsibility about which most 
people are not so particular, and which in 
reality is the most serious of all. Each one of 
our travellers might have been the small 
Japanese school child of whom we are told 
that it was found after a violent earthquake 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 9 

sitting unharmed amongst the debris and 
going on diligently with the sum it had begun 
just before. 

There were also Russian travellers on board, 
and English and Belgian engineers who came 
back from Peking, where they had tried to 
obtain rights for the construction of railways, 
which perhaps will be begun in tens of years, 
but more likely never at all. I remember so 
well how you told me that this general 
scramble for railway concessions embittered 
the Chinese almost more than anything else. 
And most of these grants, which had only been 
obtained by threats, were without any value 
for many years to come, and had only been 
claimed to forestall other competitors. In 
Peking captured concessions were bragged 
about as the Indians used to pride themselves 
on the number of scalps they had made. No- 
where as in China have I been so conscious 
of the infiniteness of space, yet nowhere as 
in Peking did it seem as if the wide world 
were not sufficient for the demands of men. 
The battle of existence was carried on there 
with that envious jealousy which would much 


10 


THE LETTERS 


rather see a country waste and barren than 
leave it to the hands of others. However rich 
and big the world is, the weak will always be 
left empty-handed, for the covetousness of the 
strong is larger than the largest space. 

On the ship we heard endless arguments 
about the future of China, about ‘open door’ 
and ‘spheres of influence/ dismemberment and 
the claims of the different countries. But 
what in Peking was only hinted at, here 
amongst these travellers found loud expression 
with brutal frankness. One suddenly stood 
face to face with the bete humaine as it really 
is ; ever does it find its own share too small 
and that of the others too large. The secret 
desire of each was unveiled with harmless 
naivet£\ for oneself walled in large spheres of 
influence, but at the neighbour’s house a wide 
open barn-door. 

They were only unimportant, isolated people 
who talked thus, yet their words opened wide, 
dreary perspectives on future strife and oppres- 
sion, revealing the general tendency of the 
age, its grasping unscrupulousness, its servility 
before success, and its cruelty towards all those 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM n 


on earth who cannot defend themselves. The 
two Japanese listened to all this, and although 
they said little, one could notice that for them 
Buddha and his teachings lay in the same 
forgotten distance as for the others Christ and 
His Word, and that they had fast acquired the 
Americano - European precept, ‘ Eat, if thou 
wouldst not be eaten.’ 

It was very foggy, very grey, and icily cold. 

Occasionally a passenger would inquire if 
there were no fear of collisions. But then he 
was reassured by the answer that in these 
northern latitudes no other steamers plough 
the seas, and that if the unlikely were to 
happen, and we should meet some small 
sailing-craft, we were by far the weightier, 
carrying all down before us. 

Thus we went on in the thick fog, and in 
long, regular intervals the fog-horn sounded 
weirdly. 

Some of the passengers had gone to the 
smoking-room, and others had retired to their 
cabins. I was alone on deck, wrapped in my 
warmest furs. The fog had grown thicker 
than ever before, the visible world seemed 


12 


THE LETTERS 


shrunk to the space of a few feet; beyond 
that range, everything was a uniform dismal 
grey which rose and sank in silence. An 
immense weight oppressed me, so that I 
scarcely dared to breathe — and this weight 
was a nameless fear of that grey something 
out there which filled the whole world. A 
feeling of intense desolateness crept over me. 
I seemed to be quite alone, the last living 
being drifting in searching anguish through 
endless, empty space. And as I thus gazed 
out into vacancy, the grey masses began to 
move, to wave to and fro ; it seemed as if the 
wind swept heavy veils away, and suddenly 
there lay disclosed right before me a sheet 
of cold, dark northern sea. A rock rose out 
of it, snow-covered, and carrying on its crags 
long icicles which hung down to the sinister- 
looking water. On the top of the rock sat 
a huge polar bear ; his paws were holding 
the carcass of the last animal he had found 
in this wilderness, and he looked triumphantly 
around as if to say, ‘ Now am I sole lord of 
the world.’ But already the black waters 
moved and gurgled, and out of them arose 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 13 

the shining body and the huge fins of a 
snake-like monster ; his walrus head carried 
a real mane, and from his mouth hung sea- 
weed and the remnants of some small fish — 
the last he had found in the sea. His glassy, 
greenish eyes stared about, and they also 
seemed to say, ‘ Now I am quite alone, master 
of the world/ But suddenly the huge white 
bear and the sea-monster caught sight of 
each other : the enormous fins beat the waves, 
the cruel paws clawed at the rock. Both were 
yet gorged with food, but already they were 
measuring one another with angry looks like 
future adversaries. They had devastated the 
whole world, and now they met in this desolate 
waste for the ultimate fight. That would 
decide who remained lord of the world. 

* To-day we passed quite near the Aleutians/ 
the captain said at dinner ; ‘ for a moment 
one could even see one of the smallest islands 
through the mist/ 

But I believe that for a moment the clouds 
which ever surround us had lifted, allowing 
me to catch a glimpse of the history of the 
world ; which often is a history of wild beasts. 


14 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER III 

Vancouver, August 1899. 
We are still here, and for no special reason 
but that we enjoy the cool air of approaching 
autumn and the colouring of the foliage. 
This short rest gives us the illusion of being 
like other people who have a settled home. 

In most of the streets here, rows of green 
trees have been planted, and in the morning 
rosy-cheeked children pass under them going 
to school on bicycles. Everywhere the gardens 
are aglow with late roses, larkspur, and asters ; 
bright nasturtiums cover the walls, and along 
the narrow gravel-paths rows of dahlias and 
hollyhocks are drawn up in lines, standing 
stiff and prim. Gardens in such northern 
countries have a touching charm of their own ; 
it seems as if the plants would achieve as 
much as possible in the short summer-time, 
and the flowers, which are in such a hurry 
to blossom, remind us, that we all do not 
know how long the time may be measured 
out in which the sun yet shines for us. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 15 


In the well-trimmed gardens stand pretty 
cottages that all have a comfortable, well-to- 
do look, putting me in mind of that class of 
English novels which girls are allowed to 
read, and in which the heroes take three 
square meals a day and afternoon-tea with 
cream and cake besides. 

The people who live in this port, surrounded 
by pine-woods and mountains, all look active 
and wide awake ; one feels at once that they 
are free and strong personalities who have 
founded here their homes, as independent of 
governmental help as they are unhampered 
by superior tutelage. They are proud of 
what they have already made out of this 
remote bay, and for the future they look 
with full confidence to their own strength of 
expansion and to the impulsive force which 
drives their race onward to new manifesta- 
tions of its activity. For in contrast to so 
many others, the English colonies rest on 
the only healthy basis, an efficient middle 
class, which develops itself freely and un- 
trammelled ; whilst in those countries, where 
the democratic party fights the colonial move- 


i6 


THE LETTERS 


ment through short-sighted love of opposition, 
it robs itself of one of the most fertile fields 
of activity, where the chances of realising its 
political ideals would be greater than at home. 
When colonies, instead of springing from the 
genius of the people, are created by govern- 
mental decree, they ever remain but a puny 
product, reminding me of an artificial homun- 
culus in a bottle, who is fed on chemical pills, 
and who has never drawn his nourishment 
from the breast of the great mother Nature. 

Here we are far away indeed from those 
artificially reared colonies, to whom a Privy 
Councillor in the capital of the mother- 
country sends, as the most important found- 
ations of a new-born commonwealth, the 
scheme of a registry for landed property as 
well as police prescriptions about the hour 
at which lights must be extinguished and 
regulations about the muzzling of dogs. 

Here nobody wears muzzles. 

And people also are not constantly being 
governed. The laws have grown out of the 
necessities and experiences of the place itself ; 
they were not imported ready made. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 17 

I miss it so much not to be able to talk 
about all this and a thousand other things 
with you, dear friend. Who knows when I 
shall get an answer from you ? In your last 
letter, which I found here, you say that you 
are soon starting on another of your great 
exploration tours into the interior of China. 
I suppose all my letters will have to wait a 
long time at Shanghai, and will only reach 
you on your return. How I wish I could 
give wings to the white envelopes, so that 
they might follow you on your expedition 
like so many carrier-pigeons — every evening, 
when you arrived tired at some miserable 
Chinese inn, or at a Mongol tent-camp, you 
would find such a messenger from me, who 
would whisper to you how often I think of 
you, and how much I wish that you were 
never more going out on those journeys into 
the wilds, when you seem to vanish into 
space — for I am always so anxious about 
you. 


B 


i8 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER IV 

0 

Vancouver, August 1899. 

My great joy here is to be able once more 
to take long walks in the shade of old trees. 
Whoever has grown up in woodlands will 
always feel a yearning for them. Trees are 
like living beings to me, and each possesses 
an own individual physiognomy and ex- 
pression, resulting from special events and 
experiences — just as it is with men also. 
I can so well understand the ancient Germans 
who looked upon trees as the abode of special 
divinities, and I remember that as a child I 
always had an aversion against St. Boniface 
who felled their sacred tree. 

Often have I spoken to you of my longing 
for shaded wood-paths, when we had ascended 
the Peking town-wall after the day’s heat was 
over, and we were walking up and down on 
that only clean road which the Chinese capital 
can boast of. Do you remember ? Far below 
us the great town stretched out, all the little 
one -storied houses of a uniform grey, tile 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 19 


roofs curved up, with rows of small stone 
lions sitting on their edges. From above we 
could look right into the courtyards of th< 
next houses, and what we saw there was 
always the same — the same incomprehensible 
beings who led the identical existence which 
other similar beings have led since thousands 
of years. There was always the unchanging 
throng of numberless people, who appeared so 
enigmatical to our eyes in their monotonous 
similarity, and whose ivory brows are like 
doors shut on worlds into which we shall 
never penetrate. Year after year the same 
crowd passed through the streets, which were 
filled during months with thick, black, sticky 
mud, whilst they disappeared during the rest 
of the year in dense clouds of grey dust. 
And never was the slightest attempt made 
to change or to improve anything, for as it 
was so had it ever been, nobody had known 
other and better conditions, nobody was dis- 
turbed by them — particularly none of those 
who lived behind the reddish walls and 
under the yellow glittering roofs of the 
Imperial Town, leading an existence even 


20 


THE LETTERS 


more mysterious and more enigmatical than 
all the others. 

V 

Do you remember how often we have stood 
on the high walls looking across to the 
Forbidden City with its pitiable, crumbling 
splendour? I always had the impression 
as if a great nightmare - like weight were 
slowly descending on the whole town, as if 
the shadows of some terrible coming evil 
were gradually creeping over it. With what 
intense feeling of infinite remoteness have I 
not looked out on the endless plains and 
thought of other countries where incompre- 
hensibility is not so ever present, where the 
people speak and bow, mourn and rejoice as 
we do. On the eve of my departure we have 
stood once more up there together, and you 
repeated the words which you had said so 
often during the last weeks: ‘Yes, it is better 
that you should go — it is better.’ 

Then we went home across the canal bridge, 
and as we were passing the small temple in 
whose yard a curio dealer had established his 
little shop of queer old rubbish, you said to 
me : ‘ Soon you will take other walks in other 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 21 


countries under old shady trees, as you have 
wished it here so often.’ 

You seemed so sad, dear friend, as you were 
saying that, and yet it was you who urged my 
brother to accept the appointment in New 
York, and even made us hurry our departure 
— why? 

And now I am in a country of green, shady 
trees, and since we are here I go out daily 
for hours far into the woods. The most 
beautiful spot here is the Victoria Park, with 
its ancient trees, its splendid views on the 
sea, but better than all that, with its repose, 
its silence, and peace. How deeply would an 
artist like Boecklin enjoy this forest, which 
seems yet so near to an undisturbed primeval 
condition, that I should scarce wonder at meet- 
ing fauns and unicorns wandering over the soft, 
thick moss. 

Yesterday I stayed very long in the Park. 
I had walked on dreamily till I arrived at 
its farthest end, where it reaches the most 
narrow point of an inlet of the sea. There 
the rocky coast falls down abruptly, and 
deep below the water rushes past. I sat 


22 


THE LETTERS 


down between ferns and creepers and looked 
into the depth of that narrow channel through 
which all ships must pass that come to Van- 
couver from the Far East. And I dreamt 
how delightful it would be to have a little 
house here hidden in the woods ; then I 
should go daily to this farthest point of land 
and sit under the old trees and look out for 
ships coming from far-away Cathay. And at 
last a ship would come on which you would 
be standing, and from my rock I should throw 
a large bunch of wild wood-flowers down to 
you. 

For surely you will only stay in China as 
long as it is absolutely necessary? Already 
now, I think out so many beautiful plans for 
the time when I shall see you again. 

When, where, will that be? 


LETTER V 

Banff, September 1899. 

The early morning sun shines into my room, 
dear friend, the sparrows are chirping and 
they seem to mistake the seasons, thinking 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 23 

still of spring idyls now in the beginning of 
autumn. I will begin the day by calling 
out a good -morning to you, out into un- 
fathomable distance. May a friendly breath 
of air bring my greeting to you wherever 
you are, and may it be as beautiful there as 
it is here. 

This hotel is built on a wooded hill, and 
in its profound solitude it reminds me of 
some mediaeval manor in the Tyrol. From 
our windows we have an extensive view on a 
valley surrounded by mountains ; deep below 
between fir - trees a little river is running 
past hurriedly, and it grows into a rushing 
torrent at the time when the ice melts. In 
the background rise steep walls of rocks with 
snow-covered tops. 

After the long journey I enjoy all the 
comfort here. It is delightful to sleep once 
more in a bed which neither rolls nor shakes, 
and to take meals without fear that the train 
could dash off, or that the traveller sitting 
opposite might get sea-sick. 

Close to the hotel is a large, open-air 
swimming-bath, which is fed by warm sulphur 


24 


THE LETTERS 


springs. Firs stand around it, and the tepid 
water, the sunshine, and the exquisitely aro- 
matic forest air form such a delightful whole 
that in summer one must wish to stop there 
for hours. Farther down towards the valley 
are natural grottos with bubbling springs and 
deep green ponds which disappear mysteri- 
ously under the rocks. The water is so clear 
that you see on its bottom the glimmering 
white sand and each little sparkling pebble. 
I keep thinking here of fair Undine. In such 
deep, clear waters she surely swam about in 
unconscious happiness like the little silvery 
fish, until she rose up to the earth and grew 
unhappy, because she fancied that it was 
necessary to possess a soul. What a pity 
that some world-wise, well-informed person 
did not enlighten poor Undine and tell her 
that of all possessions that of a soul can 
most easily be dispensed with, and that 
nobody glides better through life than the 
cold, slippery little fish with the greenish 
eyes that look so mysterious and deep, and 
in whose depth there is nothing at all. 

We have met here an officer who commands 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 25 

the Mounted Police of the district. In winter, 
when the hotel is closed and the whole world 
far and wide is buried under the deep snow, 
that must be a truly solitary post. But in 
summer, and now in the beautiful autumn 
days, Captain White seems to lead quite a 
pleasant life. He is constantly at the hotel, 
and all the ladies seem to look upon him 
as a kind of Master of the Revels. In the 
hall, where great logs burn in the chimneys, 
and the floor and wall are covered with 
splendid skins and fur rugs, Captain White 
flirts with blue-eyed, sport-loving Canadians ; 
he flirts with American summer girls, who 
have thought it more original to spend a 
season in Canada than in Europe ; and he 
flirts with pale, faded-looking Englishwomen, 
who come in yearly increasing numbers from 
Hong-kong, to rest here from that enervating 
climate. Every day long excursions are under- 
taken, at which Captain White drives the 
favoured ones in his coach. He is an ex- 
cellent whip, but it often looks most perilous 
when he drives his team up the corkscrew 
roads, which rise in such sharp curves, that 


26 


THE LETTERS 


sometimes the first pair of horses stands just 
one story above the second with the carriage. 
He goes on joking at the most appallingly 
dangerous turns, and he told me much about 
Canadian winter sports and about the fast- 
disappearing Indians. ‘But they are well 
cared for by the Government/ he said, with 
the deep tones of white mankind’s self-com- 
placency. Thus it always is : the white man 
comes and takes a country away from its 
poor coloured owner, and thinks he has done 
much for the poor benighted savage if, in 
exchange, he gives him his own diseases and 
vices and a little religion on the top with 
which to atone for them and smooth the 
road to inevitable oblivion. 

Yesterday we drove to the Devil’s Lake, 
which is of the deepest blue and surrounded 
by high rocky ranges. I was not able to 
ascertain why it got this name. But it is so 
frequent in all countries that it seems as an 
indication that the belief in the devil’s ubiquity 
is far more deeply rooted in the convictions 
of mankind than the faith in another omni- 
presence. And probably the belief in ghosts 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 2 7 


and bad spirits is really much older than the 
belief in a god, for out of the fear of mis- 
chievous, inexplicable powers all cult has 
sprung up ; its earliest forms are all of a 
defensive kind, to protect poor human beings 
from the pursuits of evil sprites — and that is 
probably the reason why so many people even 
now look upon their deity as an angered being 
which must be appeased and propitiated. 

This Canadian devil’s lake reminded me 
of a small lake in the Pyrenees which I saw 
years ago. A small cross stands there on 
a rock, and our Basque guide took off his 
broad woollen b£ret, crossed himself, and 
said that at that place a pair of lovers had 
been drowned. Young as I then was, this 
impressed me very much ; but when I had 
climbed up the rock, I read such an ancient 
date on the cross that, if the lovers, instead 
of being drowned, had grown old enough 
to see their grandchildren, they yet would 
have been dead long ago. That cooled my 
emotion. At one time or another a little 
cross would always have marked the end — 
perhaps it was better thus. 


28 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER VI 

Banff, September 1899. 

Dear Friend, — The world is so glorious here 
that I must again write to you. I am afraid 
that this beginning is not very logical, but 
you will understand it all the same, as you 
have always understood everything — spoken 
and unspoken words. 

We have known each other in a country 
which nobody could call very beautiful ; on 
the contrary, it often was very dreary and 
ugly, and over all our common memories there 
seems to float a veil of melancholy ; yet now, 
since I am gone from there, I never feel nearer 
you than when I see something truly fine and 
grand. After those three years in Peking, 
during which nature so seldom showed beauty 
to me, and during which I only found it in 
one human being’s heart and soul, it seems 
like a revelation to see how splendid the 
world is. In the presence of these towering 
mountains, when the sun shines on the glaciers 
and streams rush down from rocky heights 
into deep green lakes, when I breathe the 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 29 


scented air and look up at those huge trees 
which may have stood here long before the 
white man set his foot on this soil — I often 
ask myself, Is this really the same world? 
Has all this been murmuring, gurgling, and 
rushing, been glistening, blooming, and spark- 
ling during the three grey years which I spent 
in that remote town, where my heart often 
seemed to contract in oppressive anxiety, as 
at the approach of a sinister, irremediable 
doom ? 

It is such a delight again to be able to find 
something beautiful, to feel suddenly that 
youth and the faculty for enthusiasm only 
lay dormant, that they are still there and only 
waiting to be allowed to come to life again. 
It is such a delight, dear friend, to be able to 
rejoice once more — without any special desire, 
without any egotistical thought, only to feel 
once more that unique, harmonious joy which 
nature awakens in us, which clears and com- 
forts, so that cares, dread, and mourning dis- 
appear for a while as in a distant haze. In such 
moments we realise that we are ourselves a 
part of nature, notwithstanding all artifici- 


30 


THE LETTERS 


ality and torment with which hundreds of 
generations have weighted us down, and for 
a short moment we deem it possible to be as 
the lilies of the fields. For a short space of 
time beauty delivers us from the great load 
of all that we have endured, of all we have 
wanted yet never attained. We breathe once 
more freely, and we long to tarry and to for- 
get ; but already we must return to the cares 
and to the woes which mean life to us. 

But even for this short rest I give thanks to 
the deep shades of these forests ! 

LETTER VII 

Banff, Septe7nber 1899. 

In the great peace of these woods, which is so 
restful to us who for so long have been 
wanderers, I often remember wonderingly 
the hurry and strife in the midst of which we 
have lived in Peking. There the only object 
of life seemed to be a perpetual struggle and 
the devising how to push others away and to 
take their place. I believe that you, dear 
friend, will understand how refreshing the 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 31 

calm here is to me who have ever belonged to 
those that seek nothing. Often when I heard 
you talking at Peking, I had the impression 
that you looked down on all the pushing and 
struggling as from a height, to which petty 
motives could not reach, and that your 
thoughts dwelt in a region which to every- 
thing mean and paltry was indeed a For- 
bidden City. 

You thought and felt even for the Chinese, 
whose wishes and opinions were considered by 
everybody else as a quantite ntgligeable , and 
who only seemed to exist to be driven by 
force into so-called progress. How often 
were the Chinese punished for having let 
themselves be spoliated by one benefactor, 
by being robbed even more by the other. 
Every single power urged the Chinese to 
make a stand against the demands of all 
the others, but at the critical moment the 
poor Chinese were always left in the lurch 
and never got any real support ; they were 
always abandoned to the tender mercies of 
the one who most energetically wanted some- 
thing, and if they gave way too much to the 


32 


THE LETTERS 


one for the general equilibrium, the others were 
not slow to re-establish the proper balance by 
putting up afterwards new demands on their 
own account. 

Life in Peking thus seemed like a perpetual 
see-saw. 

Nowhere have I learned to despise success 
more than there, because I have seen from 
quite close quarters how it is achieved : by 
some through bribery, by others through 
threats. It seems as if the poor Chinese, 
through natural disposition, were incapable of 
offering any resistance to the charms of 
money and to the terrors of guns, as if the 
moral and physical backbone were lacking. 
And I fancy that if by any chance they ever 
make a real stand, it is always because there is 
another power behind them which has bribed 
or threatened them even more. I remember 
so well how your friend Li Hung Chang once 
remained quite obdurate against a demand 
exacted from him. That was only because a 
foreign power backed him up of which he 
stood in even greater awe than of the one 
which had made the request. And the full 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 33 

European meanness then showed itself, for 
Li Hung Chang was abused all round, whilst 
the power behind very wisely never was 
mentioned — for of that the others also were 
afraid. 

It has always struck me that the air of Peking 
has a peculiar influence on white men ; some 
become there more Chinese than the Chinese, 
and turn into passionate friends and defenders 
of China ; this is the case with most inter- 
preters, custom-house officials, and diplomats 
of the old school. The younger, on the con- 
trary, seemed to be seized by a sudden frenzy 
of self-conscious hypergreatness, which is 
rooted in a profound contempt of all things 
Chinese. They proclaim that everybody has 
a right to help himself to what he needs, and 
that he who has the necessary strength should 
in China at least follow the ‘ moral of lords/ for 
thus only can nations and individuals become 
great. The gist of the matter is that there 
is somewhere something which they want and 
only can get by unlawful means, and that is 
why the great words of patriotism, expan- 
sion, new markets, and points of support are 
C 


34 


THE LETTERS 


aired; and for this purpose also, otherwise 
guileless bureaucratic souls drape themselves 
as so many Caesar Borgias, as disciples of 
Machiavelli and Nietzsche. But the ‘atti- 
tude of lords’ can only be improvised as 
long as you have to deal exclusively with 
Chinamen ; if things grow more serious and 
the Chinamen have some powerful support 
behind them, a most unlordlike nervousness 
replaces the pose of masterful hypergreatness. 
Notwithstanding all we may fondly fancy, we 
can scarcely be called a generation of ‘ Ueber- 
menschen.’ We are doubters, scoffers, 
grumblers ; but we have not the stuff of 
which ‘ Uebermenschithum’ is made. For 
that we should first of all need to believe in 
ourselves — and who does that nowadays? 
If we are frank we will confess that we have 
recognised ourselves to be but tinsel gods; 
and tinsel gods may possibly still overawe 
savages, but they surely do not impose upon 
their own selves. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 35 


LETTER VIII 

In the Train, October 1899. 
Dear Friend, — We have left charming 
Banff. The mountain ranges and the deep 
green woods lie far behind us. Already a 
whole day long we have been speeding on 
through the wide plains. We have looked 
out of the window ; off and on we have read 
a few pages and we have studied our fellow- 
passengers. Now evening is coming, the 
shadows grow longer, and in the purple west 
the sun sinks down towards other worlds. 
Grey shadows seem to be rising from the 
earth ; they look at me silently, and in their 
dead eyes I read the question, ‘What have 
you done with us ? ’ They are hopes, dreams, 
wishes, and ideals — all things with which we 
began our long journey in the early dawn 
of life, and which we then guarded as our 
most precious possessions. We thought to 
hold rare, golden grains of seed, from which 
an enchanted garden was to spring up full of 
glorious flowers. But instead of being allowed 
to lay out a garden, we have lost all the 


36 


THE LETTERS 


grains on the way, some early, others late. 
Some have disappeared without our even 
noticing it ; they were blown away, like the 
pictures of our dreams when we wake are 
gone nobody knows whither — the memory of 
them even is dead. About others we have 
fought to the utmost ; we wanted to keep them 
at any cost, for they were to be the proudest or 
dearest ornament of the future garden ; but 
they also were torn from us. 

In the toils and cares of daily life, which are 
given to us by destiny as opium with which 
to forget the greater miseries, we scarcely 
think of all we have lost. But in the even- 
ing hours of long days of travel, when the 
book slips from our hand and we gaze wearily 
out of the window, when the train rushes 
through wide plains and its gigantically 
lengthened shadow speeds along with us over 
the waving grass-land, when everywhere 
around us the distinct outlines dissolve and 
vanish in a dim, dusky grey — then cold, in- 
visible hands touch our hearts, infinite melan- 
choly, hopeless longing, bitter remembering 
fill our soul. That is the hour when all 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 37 

that is lost and dead rises up once more, 
when we suddenly realise how poor we have 
grown. 

The enchanted garden once more stretches 
before us, fair as we had planned it in that 
dim time when we yet had the absolute con- 
viction of being called to a special mission. 
But instead of that confidence, now infinite 
pain alone lives in us ; we know that we 
have lost the golden flower-seeds — never can 
they grow and bloom. The years have gone 
by, wasted in the hope of that which never 
came, pined away in useless regret ; and thus 
the best and highest in us has died and the 
most precious is lost. 

And now it is too late. 

Fain would we stop Time, to hurry back, 
start afresh, and begin all over again ! But 
the wheels of time can never turn backwards for 
us, and the train irresistibly rushes on over the 
endless plains ; like a gigantic monster its 
shadow spreads over the wide land, like a 
gigantic destiny ever hurries us onward. 
Without a will we must follow, we who were 
not strong enough to be our own destiny, who 


38 


THE LETTERS 


have squandered the years and then wasted 
them with mourning. 

And the whole journey ? Whereto ? Where- 
fore? 

Blessed he who, out of the chain of losses, 
has saved as an opium for the last hour the 
belief in a final goal. 

LETTER IX 

New York, October 1899. 

Dear Friend, — After a four days’ journey 
we have at last arrived. Weary and dusty, we 
reached New York last night, and drove at 
once to the Waldorf Astoria. I waited in the 
big hall of the hotel whilst my brother spoke 
about our rooms with the managers, who 
remind one behind their gratings of crown 
jewels or criminals. As I was thus waiting, 
a crowd gathered around me, which seemed 
inexplicable, for I felt neither amazingly 
beautiful nor repulsively ugly enough to 
justify such intense interest from my fellow- 
creatures. But the riddle was solved! It 
was not I, but our Chinese servant, Ta Kwan 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 39 

Li, whom we have been allowed, only by 
special permission, to bring into the United 
States, who excited general curiosity. Whilst 
he was standing stolidly near me with a 
travelling-bag in each hand, and the expres- 
sion of utter indifference on his good round 
face, his small slit eyes scarce open, as if it 
were not worth while looking at this entirely 
new world, many ladies and gentlemen stood 
staring at him. They called others to look as 
well, and freely expressed their opinion on his 
appearance. The Oriental, to whom all this 
was so absolutely new and strange, yet had 
the advantage over us Westerners, thanks 
to his inborn and artificially cultivated tran- 
quillity. He showed neither astonishment nor 
curiosity, and only murmured, ‘When they’ll 
have looked enough at me I suppose they’ll 
stop.’ 

The immediate consequence ofTa’s sensa- 
tional presence was that reporters from 
different papers asked to see us. They were 
full of curiosity about China, and particularly 
about the Dowager-Empress, who, since her 
coup d'etat , seems to be the central figure of 


40 


THE LETTERS 


a cycle of myths. ‘ If we believed in the con- 
tinuation of Chinese independence? Or if 
dismemberment would become inevitable? If 
Li Hung Chang really was bribed by Russia? 
Which foreign power the Empress particularly 
favoured? If the disinterested friendly atti- 
tude of the United States was well appreciated 
by her ? * 

We tried to extricate ourselves from this 
net of delicate questions, alleging that we 
were not diplomats, but mere private people; 
but it was difficult to escape from these pro- 
fessional questioners. Finally, after we had 
sent word that we were too tired to see any- 
body, it was Ta’s turn to be interviewed. 
They particularly wanted to know how he 
liked New York, which is always the first 
question here. Ta again showed calm reserve 
and dignified aloofness. He answered, ‘that 
he had only just arrived, and on account of 
its being night, he had not been able to see 
much, but as to the New Yorkers, they didn’t 
seem to be accustomed to see many people 
from foreign lands.’ 

This morning I got up very early, sat at the 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 41 

window, and watched the awakening of the 
great city. We live on the eighth floor. 
People down in the avenue look like ants, and 
yet we are scarce at half the height of the 
building. On the top of the last story there 
is a terrace which they call here a roof-garden, 
and in the hot summer nights one can take 
cold drinks up there, listen to a band, and 
enjoy the little cool breeze which there may 
be. On several of the highest buildings of the 
town, the sky-scrapers, there are such roof- 
gardens, where all kinds of shows are going 
on. When they are brightly lit up at night, 
they seem to hang in the sky like huge, 
immovable balloons. From our windows we 
have a splendid view of Fifth Avenue and 
Thirty-third Street, as far as the waters of the 
East River, over which nightly mist was still 
floating in the early morn. The houses oppo- 
site us, which years ago seemed magnificent 
and impressive, have long since been outdone 
by the modern giant buildings. They loom 
out of the bluish morning haze like the crea- 
tions of a new titanic generation which carries 
unknown possibilities ; like the castles of 


42 


THE LETTERS 


future fairy-tales, these constructions rise 
gigantic, all overpowering, and even fine in 
their way, because one feels that they have 
grown out of special needs, and are well 
adapted to their purpose. 

The first thing I did to-day was to provide 
for the adornment of my outer self, for alas ! 
in the light of western civilisation, my Chinese 
wardrobe does not appear quite up-to-date. 
I am afraid that Tientai’s works can only be 
kept as relics of a former age! Poor old 
Tientai, only tailor of Peking, who fabricated 
everything indiscriminately for the foreigners, 
from dress-suits to fancy costumes, from ball- 
gowns to babies’ clothes ! As I entered 
to-day the rooms of a great millinery ware- 
house, and saw improbably thin young ladies 
with elaborately dressed golden hair parading 
in the newest creations of fashion between 
rows of looking-glasses, I could not help 
remembering willingly the last dressmaker’s 
establishment at which I was but a few weeks 
ago — the establishment of Tientai ! How well 
I see it before me! A few steps from the 
British Legation, close to the canal bridge, 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 43 

the little house stood. Often have I passed 
there, and escaped from the mud and the 
holes of the street to the caricature of a side- 
walk, which only consisted of a few heaped-up 
stones. Tientai’s door generally stood open, 
and showed a small low-roofed room, in which 
several Chinese sat, busily sewing ladies’ or 
men’s garments ; in a corner of the floor lay 
a heap of English stuffs, which, made up into 
‘number one’ suits, were inaugurated by the 
European jeunesse dorte of Peking at the 
spring or autumn races. 

How amazed Tientai would be, if he heard 
that the long suite of rooms with looking- 
glasses, before which the golden-haired houris 
walk up and down, is the abode of an 
American Tientai ! 

As I gave my name and address, the 
manageress, the fitters, and the stylish show- 
room girls called out : ‘ Oh ! then you ’re the 
lady who arrived yesterday from Peking? 
We have read all about it in the morning 
papers; you’re stopping at the Waldorf, and 
have brought a Chinaman with you.’ 

Now they all wanted to attend to me, and 


44 


THE LETTERS 


each had another question about China, and 
particularly about the old Empress ; the 
existence of other customers seemed for- 
gotten. But Madame Blanche, the manageress, 
conducted me into a small sitting-room, and 
whilst I tried on, questions about China and 
directions to the skirt- and bodice-fitters 
whirled round me in wild mixture. 

‘ Is the old Empress really such a cruel 
woman ? ’ 

(‘ Miss Caroline, please take in the waist/) 

‘We have so much sympathy for the poor 
young Emperor/ 

(‘ Miss Harriet, tighten the skirt over the 
hips/) 

‘ Is it true that she keeps him a prisoner on 
a small island? ’ 

(‘Drape that fichu more gracefully, re- 
member : du flou ) toujours du flout) 

‘ Has the Emperor really got three hundred 
wives ? ’ 

(‘Miss Harriet, lengthen the skirt; that 
lends a gliding charm to the whole carriage/) 

‘ What strange people those Chinese royalties 
must be. Well, but, after all, what can one 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 45 


expect from people who never see the real 
world.’ 

(‘ Soignez la ligne , Miss Caroline, soignez la 
lignel) 

‘Of course you have seen the old Empress? 
And did she really sit on a golden dragon? 
How interesting it must all have been ! Rut 
I guess the ladies of the court of Peking 
haven’t much idea about dress ? ’ 

(‘ II faut avantager , madame .’) 

‘Indeed, there’s nothing more improving 
to the mind than going abroad and seeing 
strange people. But naturally one can’t apply 
the same standard to them — for they’re only 
poor heathens after all.’ 

(‘Attend once more to the measurements.’) 

‘Thank you, ma’am. You can rest assured, 
ma’am, that we’ll do our best for you. We 
take a special interest in your clothes, for 
we’ve never yet had a customer who came 
from the Empress of China.’ 

And so I shall owe it to the Empress of 
China if my New York dresses turn out to be 
a particular success 1 


46 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER X 

New York, October 1899. 

Dear Friend, — Have you ever heard about 
Charles W. O’Doyle, also called Chinavarnish 
O’Doyle? This fifty times millionaire stands 
at the head of great railways ; he possesses 
mines, ships, and land to the size of a small 
European kingdom, and he began his career 
years ago as apothecary’s apprentice in San 
Francisco. How he got there, who his 
parents were, he would perhaps be at a loss 
to tell you to-day — but just wait and see: 
the next generation of the O’Doyles will 
surely discover that an ancestor of Charles W. 
was a great landed proprietor in Ireland, who 
was persecuted under Cromwell on account 
of his Catholic faith, and having had to flee 
from the Green Island, finally came over to 
America. 

In America everything is manufactured 
nowadays, just as in Europe — even pedigrees. 

Charles W. laid the foundation of his for- 
tune by a true flash of genius. In San 
Francisco he had plenty of opportunities to 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 4/ 


study the Chinese, who in those days were yet 
allowed to enter California freely in great 
numbers, and who, after their death, were 
shipped back to Canton in equally great 
numbers, packed in huge wooden coffins. For 
Chinamen have ever indulged in the trouble- 
some belief that nowhere can they be properly 
buried but in their own country. But the 
heavy wooden coffins, manufactured in San 
Francisco according to Chinese fashion, and 
the high rates of transport often swallowed all 
that the deceased had saved during his life, 
much to the discomfiture of the pig-tailed 
heirs. Then it was that Charles W. invented 
a varnish, which he first tried on all kinds of 
dead animals. Painted with a coating of 
this lacquer, any corpse can be preserved for 
months, and even for years ; it dries com- 
pletely, gets hard as stone, and seems to be 
covered with a yellowish leather-skin. Charles 
W. took out a patent for his ‘ Chinavarnish.’ 
Covered with it, many thousands of Chinamen 
now made the voyage back to Canton. The 
price of the expensive wood coffin was saved, 
and the rate of freight was much reduced, for 


48 


THE LETTERS 


now the dead Chinamen could be put, like 
sardines, one on the top of the other, and 
stowed away into any corner of the hold. 
They arrived at home perfectly preserved, and 
very much like the yellow dried ducks which 
are sold in the San Francisco Chinatown as 
special delicacies. 

This was the basis of the O’Doyle millions ! 

But since those days, Charles W. has estab- 
lished business connections with the whole 
world. He left San Francisco long ago, and 
has settled in New York, but he has always 
kept up special relations with China. It is 
rumoured that apart from his great Chinese 
banking and railroad interests, he holds 
shares of Cantonese pawnshops, tea-houses, 
and flower-boats, which he owes to the 
gratitude of some of his former Chinese 
clients, to whom the varnish saved some 
small inheritance. My brother has known 
him for a long time, and has had business 
transactions with him from Peking, so Charles 
W. O’Doyle was one of our first callers at 
the Waldorf, and last night we dined with 
him. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 49 


His house stands close to Central Park. It 
has got high turrets and a wide loggia with 
arcades, from which one looks out on the 
autumn-tinted leaves of the trees and on 
the continual stream of carriages. On the 
sparkling copper-plated roof stand two huge 
equestrian statues, very similar to those out- 
side the German Reichstag, of which one 
also feels inclined to ask wonderingly, ‘ How- 
ever did you get up there ? ’ The street door 
is heavily carved, and comes from an old 
fortified house near Golconda ; it is studded 
with sharp iron spikes which once served to 
check the rush of hostile elephant riders. 
Through this door one enters a large white 
and golden hall. Two Egyptian mummy 
cases, richly painted and gilt, with lids 
whose top ends form hawks’ heads, stand like 
sentinels on either side of the malachite stair- 
case which leads to the upper story. 

This is a staircase of world-wide fame. Over 
it men of two continents, who yet were all 
inhabitants of the world on £ on s' amuse , have 
walked, for its steps once led to that celebrated 
Aspasia of the Second Empire to whom a 
D 


50 


THE LETTERS 


Russian grand-duke had given it as a present. 
In the great debdcle which annihilated the 
empire, the lady also disappeared. Her house, 
with all its artistic treasures, was shelled 
during the siege of Paris, and was finally 
looted by the communards. An Armenian 
antiquary, whose fine scent for good oppor- 
tunities had induced him to remain in Paris 
hidden in a cellar, bought the malachite stair- 
case for a mere song, and from him the 
present owner purchased it. 

Powdered footmen with stolid, well-fed 
British faces stood on the landings. 

‘When the Duke of Hardup broke down 
lately/ said Charles W. O’Doyle, ‘ I wired to 
London and engaged all his servants — so I ’m 
at least sure of having people who have been 
trained in a decent house/ 

O’Doyle is a broad-shouldered, heavily built 
man. His red, close-shaven face is surrounded 
by a beard that passes under his chin from 
ear to ear like a greyish frill. Big pearls 
shine on his shirt front, a chain with precious 
trinkets dangles across his waistcoat. Plis 
protruding stomach, over which he crosses 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 51 

his broad, hairy, and bejewelled hands, his 
good-humoured sounding half-Yankee, half- 
Irish brogue ; his constant talk about his 
many art treasures and their origin, gave 
me at first the impression of a conceited but 
harmless fool — but only until the sleepy eye- 
lids raised themselves under the bushy brows, 
and I caught a glimpse of his strange eyes ; 
they are cold and lurking, greenish, with 
small dark spots like the shell of plover eggs 
— after I had once looked into them, I gladly 
believed the many stories that are told about 
O’Doyle’s unscrupulousness where money gains 
are concerned. 

At first sight you realise that Mrs. O’Doyle 
belongs to a former epoch of her husband’s 
life, and that she feels ill at ease under the 
weight of pearls and amidst her powdered 
footmen. Sometimes she glances helplessly 
at her husband, when she finds herself face 
to face with an unexpected social difficulty, 
or when she is afraid of having said some- 
thing foolish. Her frightened, apologetic de- 
meanour, and his cold, cruel eyes — what factors 
in one of those domestic tragedies which 


52 


THE LETTERS 


we daily brush past without guessing their 
existence. 

The poor woman has not even managed to 
give an heir to the house of the O’Doyles — 
in this respect also she is an utter failure, 
and Charles W. has therefore adopted a 
nephew and a niece. The adopted son was 
not present, but we met the daughter, Princess 
von Armenfelde, who is suing her husband 
for a divorce, because Charles W. does not 
wish to pay a fourth time the ever renewed 
debts of his son-in-law. So the Princess 
must get a divorce whether she likes it or 
not. She will keep her title, and Charles 
W. thinks that as it is he has paid dearly 
enough for it. 

Two young cousins of Mrs. O’Doyle were 
also present. One of them enjoys the noble- 
sounding Christian names, ‘ Washington Mont- 
gomery.’ I wondered what family name might 
be grand enough after such a beginning, and 
fancy, he is called ‘ Baggs.’ Washington 
Montgomery — Baggs. It is like a jump from 
a palace near Central Park to a tenement 
house on Ninth Avenue. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 53 

Whilst the guests were assembling, Wash- 
ington Montgomery showed me the splendid 
pictures which in his eyes derive their principal 
value from having belonged to collections 
of princely houses which ended under the 
auctioneer’s hammer. 

The second cousin has evidently only just 
been transplanted to the O’Doyle millions 
realm. When champagne was served he 
got quite excited and called out loudly : 
‘ Drink, drink, gentlemen, whilst it ’s fizzing ! ’ 

The dining table was a perfect delight to 
the eyes. Never have I seen such orchids, 
except perhaps in the Botanical Garden at 
Calcutta. I should have liked to admire 
every single one : the long white flowers 
which hung in grapes and clusters from the 
chandelier, the greenish, dark-veined ones, 
which look like small velvet shoes for fairies 
to wear at a dance in the moonlight, the tall, 
pale lilac blossoms on their high, thin stems 
which seem so proud and unapproachable 
until you notice their purple, longingly opened 
lips. Orchids always remind me of some 
beautiful woman, of whom you at once feel 


54 


THE LETTERS 


that she must have gone through strange, 
mysterious adventures. I wish I understood 
the orchid language — queer, marvellous tales 
are surely told in it. 

At this New York dinner table, however, 
stories also were not lacking. As we took 
up our napkins, a little box fell into the 
hands of each guest with a present inside — 
studs, pins, porte-bonheurs, buckles ; every- 
thing in the newest of ‘ art nouveau ’ taste. 
Colonel Patterson, a former American diplo- 
matic agent at Cairo, called across the table 
to his old friend O’Doyle : ‘ I say, Charlie, 
why on earth have you done this? There’s 
nobody to be bribed here, I reckon?’ And 
straight away the Colonel plunged into a 
flood of Turkish bribery tales, which how- 
ever seemed tame to me, for having heard 
during three years all the Chinese bribery 
anecdotes, I think that in this respect the 
Far East is ahead of the nearer Orient. The 
Princess, who never forgets the presence of 
the Hardup footmen, evidently did not relish 
this conversation, so to change the subject 
she asked the Colonel what interesting people 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 55 


he had met at Cairo. And he answered : 
‘Well, Mrs. Princess, there’s a man there 
called Cromer, who bosses the show, and 
besides him — well, there was myself.’ 

But now, dear friend, enough from this 
Vanity Fair ! 

May my letter find you well wherever you 
are, and may you not stay too long there, as 
‘there’ is so far from me. 

LETTER XI 

New York, November 1899. 
To-DAY old Mr. Bridgewater and his daughters 
came to see me. He has spent many years 
in Europe, and was United States minister 
at Petersburg, where my brother and I had 
known him. Now he lives with his daughters 
in New York and in Tuxedo Park. He is at 
the head of some large charitable institu- 
tions, he writes and he often travels with that 
American facility about which there is some- 
thing godlike, for it seems to be above space, 
time, and money. 

Mr. Bridgewater spoke about the great 


56 


THE LETTERS 


changes which have taken place here in public 
opinion and in political views since the war 
with Spain. To the traveller who has not 
been here for some years, the changes are 
immediately noticeable in the enormously 
increased general self-reliance. The whole 
nation seems penetrated by the belief of 
being called to achieve a special end — a con- 
viction through which so many great aims 
have already been attained. America con- 
siders herself as the politically chosen one 
of the Lord. And it is an amusing mixture 
of feelings before which the onlooker stands : 
on the one hand, quite dry, prosaic calculations 
as to future commercial advantages which 
are to be obtained, and side by side with 
these, an almost religious enthusiasm for the 
mission of bringing light and liberty to others. 
And by ‘ others ’ the Americans not only 
allude to savage people, for with regard to 
those we all cherish the same pretension of 
being traders and politico-religious apostles 
combined — but, on the contrary, they mean 
us poor benighted Europeans. America begins 
to stretch out her feelers in all directions, 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 57 

and probably could not do otherwise even if 
she would, for one gets here the impression 
of an accumulated mass of strength, which 
impatiently waits for the moment of manifest- 
ing itself, which probably has not even a 
choice in the matter, but which is driven 
onward through the logic of things to search 
for wider boundaries and to assert itself in 
ever new questions. 

As the individual American always has felt 
himself to be the equal of the best of any 
people, and just as he knows of no limit for 
his personal enterprise, thus America as a 
nation now considers herself capable and en- 
titled to obtain all she wants. And what 
America wants is the world. Well, every- 
body who has the slightest chance of it wants 
the world, but the chances of America are 
amazingly good ones. The Americans’ look- 
out is so favourable because they apply to all 
undertakings their great sense of the practical 
and their inborn gift of organisation, because 
they are a nation of independent men, who, 
taken at an average, are superior to the Euro- 
peans. Originally they descend from those 


58 


THE LETTERS 


who found themselves too much hampered 
and confined in old Europe, from men who 
were driven by their love of independence 
into new worlds where their personality could 
develop unfettered. This inherited quality 
forms the fundamental trait of the new race, 
and it has bred a higher initiative and sense 
of personal responsibility than in the old 
world. The first thing which the American 
learns is to provide for himself, without relying 
on the guidance of others. 

A consequence of the Americans’ strong, 
healthy youthfulness is that they do not yet 
know the political nervousness from which so 
many suffer in Europe. They never use the 
soothing draught formula so common in some 
European countries, ‘ Leave others to conquer 
colonial possessions, they’ll bleed to death 
through them,’ a phrase which sounds about 
as convincing as if a eunuch tried to console 
himself by saying that one can easily get into 
trouble through love adventures. The North 
Americans, on the contrary, have begun by 
declaring their whole continent taboo, and 
they would like best to extend the doctrine 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 59 

over the whole world, and particularly over 
the countries of the Far East, which preoccupy 
them much since they obtained a footing out 
there. For the present only peaceful com- 
mercial expansion is talked about in America ; 
but surprises are of frequent occurrence on 
that road, and since the Spanish war, America 
possesses a party which dreads nobody and 
which feels equal to all. These people would 
be ready to cope with any one, and Mr. Bridge- 
water said by preference with the one whom 
they consider as the most dangerous com- 
petitor. Mr. Bridgewater added that they 
thought of England as the least likely enemy. 
With their former mother the Americans would 
like to form a kind of gigantic political trust 
for the final settlement of the world. 

‘In that business association I doubt you’re 
being the gainers, however smart you may be,’ 
I answered Mr. Bridgewater. 

This, dear friend, is a picture of the world’s 
future, as an American painted it to me. I 
send it to you into that far-off country, whose 
prosaic sons only live in the care of the present 
and never seem to indulge in speculations 


6o 


THE LETTERS 


about the days to come. And yet, perhaps 
this very people may be destined to become 
a powerful agent in the world’s future, for over 
us all stands destiny, and it often forces indi- 
viduals and nations to further ends the exact 
reverse of those which they wished to serve. 

LETTER XII 

New York, November 1899. 
Dear Friend, — We have spent a charming 
evening at the Bridgewaters’. To see their 
house is a perfect treat. All the rooms are 
arranged with individual taste, and filled with 
beautiful things which Mr. Bridgewater and 
his artistic daughters have brought home 
from their travels. The house has its own 
physiognomy, lives spent there have left their 
trace, and it remains engraven in the memory 
like a well-defined personality. Old Mr. 
Bridgewater was born in this house, and he 
now lives in it with his children and grand- 
children — that alone is a curiosity in New 
York. 

After the feast at the O’Doyles’ this dinner 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 61 


was like the revelation of a different American 
world, and yet both houses are only a few 
blocks apart. But we hear so much about 
American quality, about the President’s in- 
discriminate handshaking, that we could easily 
be led to fancy that American society is like 
a clear soup in which only a few Vanderbilts 
swim about like so many dumplings. Nothing, 
however, could be more erroneous, for the 
society here is divided into ever so many sets, 
which are separated by wide gulfs. As they 
all are Americans, I suppose they have certain 
racial qualities in common, but between the 
O’Doyles and the Bridgewater sets, for ex- 
ample, there exists a difference as between a 
piece of raw beef and tournedos a la Rossini 
served at Sherry’s. And the Tournedos take 
precious good care that none of the Rawbeefs 
should smuggle into their domain. The 
Americans have already far surpassed us in 
the love for aristocratic exclusiveness. And 
everybody here who has a certain standing 
to keep up must be so very particular whom 
he associates with, because there exists no 
single individual in America so highly placed 


62 


THE LETTERS 


that he or she could give an unquestioned 
social consecration to somebody else. Lately 
I heard an American lady say that she found 
those European towns where there are courts 
so very convenient because there she could 
invite the people that were bidden to the 
small select court functions and be quite 
sure of having socially desirable guests at 
her house ; she added, she did not mean 
those, of course, who were only seen at court 
at the great round-ups, because at such 
gatherings there was always a good deal of 
mixture. 

But in America there is no such official 
hair-sieve. Here everybody must use his own. 

At Mr. Bridgewater’s they evidently sieve 
very carefully, and I have met there very 
pleasant people. I believe the guests were 
all rich. But my only reason for this sup- 
position is that they seemed to consider so 
many things as absolutely indispensable, of 
which I know how expensive they are here. 
None of them mentioned money or business. 
I believe one could call them a set of intel- 
lectual aristocrats. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 63 


At dinner I sat next to Mr. Anstruther, who 
belongs to the club of the forty most amusing 
and witty men of New York. He was very 
nice and entertaining, but unfortunately he 
did not say anything so strikingly amusing 
that it might not also have been found outside 
that club. I waited the whole evening for it, 
as for the set-piece at a firework show. But 
only single rockets rose up. 

A good deal of self-reliance must be needed 
to apply for the membership of this club ! I 
asked what happened if a man was black- 
balled, if he then had to wear to his life’s 
end a label marked, ‘This is a bore.’ Mr. 
Anstruther answered, ‘No; in that case the 
man goes home, writes a book, and calls it 
“ A clever book by a bore.” ’ 

‘ That is more probable than it sounds at 
first/ said Mr. Bridgewater, ‘ for it is easier 
perhaps to write a clever book than to be 
amusing in daily life. Books are written 
with the esprit (Tescalier which many people 
possess, but to be amusing in daily life you 
require the much rarer gift of repartee, and 
more than anything else, a sense of humour.’ 


64 


THE LETTERS 


‘And because of this very sense of humour 
amusing people are seldom merry/ said 
Anstruther, ‘ for humour sees the sad ludi- 
crousness of life, the contradiction between 
aspirations and achievements, between what 
one fancies and that which really is. There- 
fore humour seldom is to be found in very 
young people, it grows with the years, and 
in the same measure as it increases the faculty 
for true mirth diminishes.’ 

As Mr. Bridgewater has lived so long 
abroad, foreigners are frequent guests at his 
house, and at this dinner we met a Russian 
widow, Madame Baltykoff, a literary woman, 
whom Mr. Bridgewater has known at Peters- 
burg and who has come to New York to study 
American life and to write the inevitable book 
about it. Madame Baltykoff is young and 
pretty, full of interest and admiration for 
American institutions, and naturally the 
Americans respond to this by being in their 
turn enthusiastic about Madame Baltykoff. 
Anstruther seems to be particularly taken 
with her. I like her way of jumping from 
enthusiasm into wit and irony, leaving every- 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 65 

thing an open question. Feu sacrt and 
blague in almost equal proportions — a truly 
Slav mixture. 

The Americans who were present were all 
travelled and highly cultured people, particu- 
larly the women, but as far as I could make 
out none of them takes an active part in 
American politics. They were evidently proud 
of their country, but they seemed to look upon 
it as a very fast train in which they all were 
willing to travel, but whose inner management 
and greasing of wheels they gladly left to 
others. For in America it is often just the 
best who show a certain standoffishness where 
public service is concerned — well, so much the 
better, for as it is they ’re a dangerous enough 
competitor. 

Old Mr. Bridgewater seemed the one most 
interested in public life, which may be the 
effect of his having lived so long in those 
foreign countries where an ever so slight con- 
nection with officialdom and world-manage- 
ment lends glory, just as here even distant 
relationship to the Astors or Vanderbilts 
does. By a natural tendency, where Mr. 

E 


66 


THE LETTERS 


Bridgewater is concerned, conversation drifted 
to the topic of imperialism and ‘ the growing 
importance of the United States/ Mr. Bridge- 
water said : ‘ I should like to write a book 
about the “Advent of North America into 
the Concert of the Powers,” for that is the 
most important fact at the end of the century, 
and it does not only mean a shifting in the 
distribution of actual might, but it will have far- 
reaching intellectual consequences. Through 
growing relations with us the Europeans will 
become influenced by our modes of thought. 
We are accustomed to hear all subjects widely 
discussed in which we are in any way inter- 
ested and to be fully informed about them, 
and you can already notice, that whenever 
America is concerned in a world question, that 
question is freely dealt with by the papers, 
such as is never the case in purely European 
concerns, and the greater the number of affairs 
in which America takes a hand, the more this 
method will become generally applied. That 
is a first step towards awakening the Euro- 
peans to a stronger sense of self-determination 
and of personal responsibility. They will learn 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 67 


to value the people’s rights higher, and will 
claim an ever-increasing voice in the manage- 
ment of their own affairs, and no longer rest 
satisfied to be blindly led, as they are at 
present, for instance, in all that belongs to 
external questions. Nothing is more con- 
tagious than certain ideas. Formerly we got 
everything from Europe, but that is all 
changed. To-day we are almost entirely 
independent of the old world, and we send 
to it corn, meat, preserves, and an ever- 
growing number of other articles, but more 
important than all that, is that the American 
political ideas will flood Europe.’ 

‘And do you really think it possible that 
American ideas about political constitution, 
for instance, should gain ground in Europe?’ 
asked Madame Baltykoff eagerly. 

‘ In the end surely yes,’ answered Mr. 
Bridgewater. 

‘ There I differ from you,’ said my brother, 
‘for the growing of the imperialistic tendency 
in the United States, which you have just 
described as the most important fact of this 
century’s end, is an essentially European and 


68 


THE LETTERS 


monarchical feature. As more weight is 
given to outward expansion and to a strong 
foreign policy, the people’s representatives, 
who are necessarily chiefly occupied with 
inner questions, lose in importance. A great 
imperialistic policy necessitates the rule of 
great leaders, and there those countries have 
the advantage where a single man stands at 
the head of the state.’ 

‘ There, you see, Bridgewater, 'said Anstruther 
laughing, ‘ this stranger predicts us an emperor 
if we continue on the path of intervention, pro- 
tection, expansion, warfare, and swallowing of 
islands.’ 

‘ Well, then, let us choose him out of the 
Club of the Forty,’ answered our host, ‘for 
thus shall we feel sure of his being clever.’ 

‘Yes, smart and full of modern ideas Sam I. 
of America will certainly have to be, otherwise 
he would be put to shame by some of his 
European colleagues.’ 

On our way home my brother and I talked 
about the impression which one now so often 
receives here : that the Americans consider 
us Europeans as pitiably antiquated. After 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 69 


having taught us modern methods of business, 
they now also want to supply us with modern 
principles in general and with all we are lack- 
ing in the intellectual domain. Doesn’t it 
sound strange ? For after all they got every- 
thing from us and are standing on our 
shoulders. My brother says, that he remem- 
bers perfectly well the time when one arrived 
in America and had for everything a kind of 
parental goodwill ; in those days the Americans 
eagerly inquired, if one really thought every- 
thing ‘ very big,’ and they were so pleased at 
any praise. Now they are convinced of having 
by far surpassed us — and I dare say they 
have. 

Well, it must occasionally happen that 
children outdo their parents — otherwise how 
could the first genius have come to exist? 

LETTER XIII 

New York, December 1899. 
Dear Friend, — A few days ago we left the 
Waldorf, which is as expensive as it is delight- 
ful, and we have moved into a nice boarding- 


7 o 


THE LETTERS 


house near Central Park, where Madame 
Baltykoff also lives. Ta of course is with us, 
and here, as at the Waldorf, he seems to be a 
source of unbounded amusement to the white- 
capped housemaids. He is much less reserved 
with us here than in Peking. We never heard 
anything about the life of our ‘ boys.’ They 
were always near at hand when wanted, they 
did their work noiselessly, and they seemed 
to have made a study of all our little whims 
and fads. But the minute they left our houses 
and stepped out into the streets they were 
engulfed in an unknown world, and we never 
heard a word about that part of their lives. 
Only when they occasionally wanted a longer 
holiday, we were informed that their father 
or mother was dying. At first that moved 
me deeply, I always gave them the holiday, 
and offered medicines besides. But they really 
had too many dying fathers and mothers, and 
such frequent demands were made on my 
stock of compassion that it at last got ex- 
hausted. Here matters are different, Ta is 
often quite communicative, and he tells me 
about the housemaids, who like to dress him 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 7 


up as a lady on account of his long hair, and 
who have even taken him to orle of their balls. 
Away from China I evidently appear to Ta 
as ‘ Father, Mother, and Protector of the poor,’ 
as the natives in India used to say; he looks 
upon me as the only connecting link between 
his former and his present life. I believe that 
since he has seen here so many negroes, he 
considers white people as almost akin to 
himself. ‘ Those are not men, they are black 
devils,’ he said to me quite seriously ; and on 
no account will he admit that they can be 
Christians like himself. To look down upon 
others is evidently a subtle satisfaction for 
human beings of all colours. 

Several times Ta has received letters from 
home. He is always very silent and sad on 
those days, and I asked him if he felt home- 
sick. He answered, ‘ Oh no, that he was very 
happy to be here, but that his old mother 
had sent him word through others that she 
wanted him, and that he must come back.’ 
‘Isn’t it rather your young wife?’ I asked. 
‘Oh no,’ he answered quite indignantly, as if 
I had accused him of some shameful weakness, 


72 


THE LETTERS 


‘wife nothing, mother everything.’ Now my 
brother has sent money to the old mother at 
Peking, and that will appease her, I hope. 
With Ta’s help I have begun unpacking and 
arranging our rooms a little. It was such a 
pleasure again to see all the dear well-known 
things. The jade bowls and bronze vases, the 
carved ivory figures of Laotse with the long 
head, the Chinese velvets which with age have 
acquired quite a Genoese look, the delicate 
faded damasks and embroideries. As much as 
possible I have placed and draped everything 
just as it was in the little Peking house ; at 
dusk, when Ta glides noiselessly into the 
room, I could almost fancy to be there once 
more, and I should scarcely wonder if he were 
to announce you. 

I have turned the mantelpiece into a 
Buddha altar, and all those singular figures 
stand there which you gradually picked up for 
me in dilapidated, abandoned temples, or in 
the most dusty corners of some curio shop. 
Already before knowing you in Peking, I had 
the mania for collecting Buddha statues. I 
had bought several from Chinese dealers, who 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 73 

had brought them to me, hidden away in their 
wide sleeves, and who whispered mysteriously 
that these idols came from imperial temples, 
and that they ran great risks in bringing them 
to foreigners. I remember how I first showed 
you these treasures. For a moment you 
looked at them critically, and then you said, 
‘Not bad at all, considering it’s modern Euro- 
pean imitation.’ That was a blow ! At first 
I almost felt vexed with you, for nothing hurts 
more than to lose beloved idols. And I had 
treated mine so reverently and had always 
put fresh flowers before them ! But you were 
soon pardoned, for you replaced the false 
Buddhas by real ones, and that is more than 
most people do who deprive others of their 
gods. 

Well, it is not an easy task l 

LETTER XIV 

New York, December 1899. 
DURING the last days, dear friend, I have 
been quite taken up with the arrangement of 
our rooms. You know how dependent on my 


74 


THE LETTERS 


outward surroundings I am. Mild mellow 
colours, artistic draperies, finely curved lines, 
give me a sensation of physical well-being. 
Perhaps that really great spirits rise above 
such trifles and do not allow themselves to be 
disturbed by them, but I am only quite a 
diminutive spirit, I dread the big sea of 
commonplace ugliness, and I only rest satisfied 
when I have succeeded in creating for myself 
my own tiny island shaped according to my 
personal taste. I also try to deceive myself 
about the transitory character of my nomad 
life, by decorating every new lodging we take 
with so much eagerness and earnest interest as 
if it were an old family manor destined to 
serve for many generations to come — and yet 
it never is anything but a tent, which we ever 
anew pull down to put it up in another strange 
place. In some of the houses in which we 
have lived I have even gone to the length of 
painting the doors and ceilings; my brother 
teased me about it to-day, and asked me if I 
intended to bestow such a lasting souvenir of 
our passing stay on this New York boarding- 
house. I have no such intention, but as soon 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 7 5 


as the rooms look comfortable, and a make- 
believe of home surrounds us, I will take up 
my painting again. Our drawing-room has 
an excellent light, so that it can be made to 
serve as a studio, and as my brother only 
comes back from down town late in the after- 
noon, I have the whole day to myself. All 
my Chinese sketches are here, and I have put 
up some on the walls, all of them old acquaint- 
ances of yours, to which some from Japan and 
Canada have since been added. As I was 
turning over all these leaves, the Peking days 
came back to me so vividly, and particularly 
the little picture exhibition which I had 
arranged there just before our departure. 
‘ Premier Salon de Pekin ’ it was called, and I 
sold a lot of sketches. When I thus gain a 
few hundred dollars with my brush, I feel as 
proud and self-made as Charles W. O’Doyle in 
the midst of his millions ! In grey, empty 
days, when the whole world seemed to contain 
naught for me, I began to paint, first as a 
distraction and a flight from the ever-recurring, 
tormenting thoughts. Later on, during the 
long years of wandering with my brother, it 


76 


THE LETTERS 


has gradually become the one great joy of my 
life, the liberating expression of inward experi- 
ences. And in another sense yet painting has 
become my one great pleasure, for when I sell a 
picture, it means butter to my daily bread, that 
is to say the possibility of helping with such 
little gains others who are less fortunate than I. 

You at once took much interest in my paint- 
ing. How much have you told me about the 
art and artists of the many countries in which 
you have lived. How often have you brought 
me to picturesque spots in grey old Peking 
which strangers scarce ever are shown, and 
which, thanks to their perfect originality, con- 
tain so many subjects for sketching. When 
you had thus procured for me the admission 
to an otherwise always locked-up temple, I 
eagerly set to work and painted the queer, 
grimacing idols, or the quaint nooks of tumble- 
down, bright-tiled roofs, in which doves had 
built their nests and were cooing softly. Ever 
present to my memory are those wide, reposeful 
cloister yards, in which the light plays between 
the branches of ancient trees and glides over 
the yellow draperies of some monk, who, 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 77 

leaning against a huge, patina-covered bronze 
lion, lets the Buddhistic rosary glide through 
his fingers, rapt in vague, dreamy visions, 
hypnotised by the perpetual monotonous mur- 
muring of the same holy, mystical words. All 
so strange, unfathomable, and separated from 
us by such infinite distance ! 

Often, when I was thus painting and trying 
to render not only the mere lines but the 
impression of world-remoteness, have I felt 
your eyes resting on me, and have I become 
conscious of a new ardour for my work, because 
of the joy which I saw it was giving you. It 
seems like an immaterial, spiritual caress to 
be understood by another in our favourite 
pursuit and in our deepest, individual tastes. 
So much withers in us from want of a little 
interest and kindly tending. We all are like 
"graveyards of things that might have been — 
and those who have killed and buried most in 
us are often the so-called nearest and dearest. 
Thanks, dear friend, to you for all that you 
have awakened and kindly tended in me, fdr 
all the flowers that have bloomed, because 
they were a joy to you. 


78 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER XV 
New York, 25 th December 1899. 
Christmas once more has come, dear friend ! 
Christmas, in a country where I had never 
yet been on this day, where none of the outer 
surroundings are associated for me with the 
memory of former Christmas seasons, and 
where, therefore, a sense of particular forlorn- 
ness creeps over me, making me shiver as in 
intense cold. Why have we got this touching, 
and at the same time somewhat comical, 
trait of being so particularly attached to 
some special anniversary days ? What do we 
know about the day of Christ’s birth, and 
what does the day mean for us? And yet, 
however small a significance it may have to 
many of us in the wear and tear of life, and, 
however little we know of peace upon earth, 
yet it seems to us as if on this day every 
human being had a special right to rejoice, 
and we light many little candles, so as to be 
sure to see joy, if by chance it were to come 
to us. But we lonely ones, whose lives are 
spent wandering in distant lands, we seldom 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 79 


hear Joy knocking at our door on this par- 
ticular night. Other guests are they that 
come to us. There is first of all Dame 
Remembrance, whose picture-book gets thicker 
every year. Yesterday afternoon, as I had lit 
up the candles on our tree, and called my 
brother into the drawing-room, the old dame 
at once glided in also through the open door. 
During the whole day I had felt that she 
stood outside, only waiting for an opportunity 
to slip in, and during the whole day I had 
always shut the door in her face — for I am 
rather frightened of the old dame with her big 
picture-book. But now she stood there right 
between us. I think it must have been Ta, 
who was also called to receive his present, 
who had let her in ! 

Oh ! how the leaves of the big picture-book 
rustled and crackled ! They became alive with 
voices long mute ! Forgotten laughs, hushed- 
up sobs and sighs sounded afresh ! Things 
that once have been filled the room and 
heaved about us ; tiny grey ghosts sat on the 
branches of the Christmas tree in the flickering 
candlelight, and they murmured softly of all 


8o 


THE LETTERS 


that is no more; but also that which has 
never been, which has only been hoped and 
longed for — for this one brief evening it arose 
again. 

I tarried longest over the last pages of the 
picture-book. The Christmas Eves at Peking 
stood once more before my eyes. Do you 
also think of them to-day? Do you remem- 
ber? Do you remember the year when young 
MTntyre was ill, and we brought him a wee 
bit of a tree? I sat in the sedan chair, and 
held the tiny, gaily-decorated tree on my lap, 
and you walked by my side, and repeated to 
the coolies to carry me carefully over the 
rough, hard-frozen road. How pleased the 
poor boy looked when we entered his room, 
and put our glistening little tree on the table, 
between the photographs of his parents and 
brothers, who were far away in Scotland, and 
whose pictures he had wanted quite close by 
his bed on that day ! 

And do you remember the Christmas trees 
in our little Chinese house, to which you and 
some of my brother’s friends always came. 
Days before great excitement prevailed, to 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 81 


find some special surprise for everybody at 
the curio dealers, and later on, when the rail- 
road existed, venturesome people went to 
Tientsin to see what the foreign shops there 
might possibly contain. 

But you, dear friend, always discovered the 
prettiest things ! Before me, as I am writing 
to you, there stands the old French bronze 
clock, which must have come to China in the 
time of the Direotoire , and which you presented 
to me as a Christmas gift. The pedestal 
is still completely carried out in the style of 
Louis XVI., ornamented with dolphins and 
graceful garlands. From it four dragons 
arise, who carry the clock ; curious creatures 
they are, in whom the French artist tried to 
embody his own conception of the Chinese. 
Above the clock there stands on a celestial 
globe a small Gallic cock crowing for liberty, 
but making such a sceptical face, as if he had 
lost all belief in it long ago. 

When you gave me this clock you said, ‘ It 
is so well suited to you/ On a basis of old 
inherited taste, transmitted through many 
generations, the dragons rise, representing the 
F 


82 


THE LETTERS 


tendency towards the incomprehensible and 
mystical which awakens in us as we see that 
exact, reasonable realism does not explain 
anything, and that everything always ends 
again with a big sign of interrogation ; and 
as a crowning to the whole edifice, the brave 
little cock, who calls for liberty quand meme , 
who has seen many dull, grey days, and who 
seems to say that, after all this crowing, the 
sun might really rise. 

Yes, all that and so many more things are 
marked on the last pages of the great picture- 
book ! 

My brother and I were sitting under the 
Christmas tree in the New York boarding- 
house room ; with folded hands we were gazing 
back on life, thinking of past times. Neither 
of us spoke. One after the other, Ta put out 
the little candles that had burned down — just 
as on other Christmas Eves. Sometimes a 
small green fir-branch caught fire. We heard 
it crackle in the deep silence ; it glowed up an 
instant, and a resinous smell floated through the 
room, reminding us of distant snow-covered 
forests — yes, just as on all Christmas Eves. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 83 


LETTER XVI 
New York, 26 th December 1899. 

I WAS interrupted yesterday, and had to leave 
off my letter without being able to describe 
to you the whole of our Christmas Eve, for it 
did not end at our own rooms. We were 
invited to a Christmas tree at the house of 
the German Consul. Laden with parcels con- 
taining presents for the children, we went there 
by the Elevated Railway. 

After repeated, ineffectual ringing at the 
street-door, the Consul himself opened, and 
let us in, explaining that ‘Tom was laying 
the table.’ Then he conducted us into his 
little study, where we met several countrymen, 
amongst them the Consul-General, with his 
loud, jolly, catching laughter. The Consul 
has been appointed to New York since a few 
months, and his wife, with her two small 
children, have only joined him here a few days 
ago, coming from their home in the Black 
Forest. It is a touching German trait that, 
scarcely settled themselves, they still have 
invited for this great fete some countrymen 


8 4 


THE LETTERS 


who otherwise would probably have been left 
to spend Christmas Eve in tete-a-tete with 
home-sickness. 

‘ My wife is arranging the tree/ said the 
Consul. But there she came in, very young, 
with exceedingly fair hair coiled in plain 
plaits around her head, astonished blue eyes, 
her face rosily flushed. On her arm she 
carried a chubby one-year-old boy, who had 
the same astonished blue eyes, and by her 
side trotted a three-year-old little girl, who 
gravely carried a bell. 

‘ Everything is ready/ she called to us. 
‘ Now, Evchen, ring the bell ! ’ 

And Evchen rang the bell, and we all 
followed into the drawing-room, where the 
tree glistened with the light of many candles. 
It was decorated with bright chains, nuts, 
apples, and gingerbreads, surely an exact 
reproduction of the Christmas trees which the 
Consul’s wife had seen since childhood at her 
mother’s and grandmother’s house in the far- 
off little town of the Black Forest. It all felt 
very homelike. One forgot the hurrying, new 
town outside, and seemed to be carried back 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 85 

into an old world, where change is so slow 
that it really seems to stand still. 

The baby had been established on the car- 
pet, and a long, foldable picture-book of 
untearable paper was put up all around him, 
whilst we helped the Frau Consulin to empty 
the box which had arrived from her mother. 
How carefully it all was packed, every single 
thing wrapped many times in tissue paper, 
tied up with a blue ribbon. To each parcel 
a piece of paper was pinned, on which a few 
kind words for the receiver had been shakily 
traced by a trembling old hand. The box 
was filled with things, all of which one can get 
just as well at New York. So very unpracti- 
cal and so essentially German ! Home-knitted 
and home-embroidered clothing articles for the 
children, home-made cakes and sausages made 
out of the pig that had been killed for Christ- 
mas, and quite at the bottom of the box some 
heavy, learned-looking books for the Consul, 
and a large photograph of Boecklin’s picture 
of a monk who plays the fiddle whilst small 
angels listen to him. ‘Dear old Germany/ 
said pensively one of the guests who had 


86 


THE LETTERS 


helped to unpack, ‘ if only thy space were as 
large as thy Gemiith , so that all thy far- 
scattered children could find room by thee.’ 

Evchen had been gazing in silent rapture at 
the photograph. Now she ran to the window, 
and pressed her little nose flat against the 
glass panes. 

‘ What are you doing there ? ’ I asked her. 

‘ I ’m looking to see if there are also little 
angels flying out there/ she answered ; and 
added, rather disappointed, ‘No, here there 
aren’t any at all.’ 

With the child, I looked out on the many 
uniform houses of the street, at whose end was 
a station of the Elevated Railway. A bril- 
liantly lit train came rushing along through 
darkness, stopped a minute, and then sped off 
again. 

‘ The railway trains don’t like it here,’ said 
Evchen. ‘ They make such haste to get here, 
but then they always hurry away again as 
fast as they can.’ 

‘ Dear child,’ the Consul addressed his wife, 
‘shall we not soon get something to eat?’ 

She started up from amongst all the home 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 87 

parcels. 1 Aber ja, surely everything must be 
ready long ago.’ 

She rang the bell, but cause and effect did 
not follow one another. Then she went out, 
but soon came back with a startled face, and 
we heard her whispering to her husband, ‘ I 
think you had better go and talk to him.’ 

Then the Consul went out, and we soon 
heard a short altercation in raised voices, and 
then something heavy seemed to roll down 
the stairs. The Consul came in again, some- 
what flushed and breathless. ‘ Ladies and 
gentlemen, I beg your pardon — it was merely 
one of those small domestic incidents which 
make housekeeping in the United States an 
occupation so full of varied emotions — the 
negro, Tom, was very tipsy — I found him 
playing ball with the Edam cheese — then I 
inverted the parts, and played ball a little 
with him — and during that game he just 
rolled down the staircase and into the street.’ 

‘ And when I went out before,’ added the 
Frau Consulin plaintively, ‘ he was eating the 
oysters we were to have had for supper, and 
he explained to me that he was only choosing 


88 


THE LETTERS 


the bad ones, so that we should not get 
poisoned.’ 

The Consul-General laughed in his most 
sonorous, hearty fashion, and we all joined in. 
And then followed a Christmas supper, which at 
least had the charm of unconventional novelty, 
for it was discovered that the Irish cook had 
left with the black Tom. We all went down 
to the kitchen with the Consul’s wife, and 
saved what yet could be saved ; we carried the 
dishes into the dining-room, and did also full 
justice to the sausages which had been sent 
with such wise foresight in the Christmas-box 
from Germany. 

As we said good-bye, our hostess remarked 
apologetically, ‘ You all must forgive us — but 
you see things here are rather different from 
the Black Forest.’ 

LETTER XVII 

New York, ist January 1900. 
Dear Friend, — May the New Year shower 
on you all* the good things with which I wish 
you may be blessed ! My first thoughts this 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 89 

morning flew out across the roaring winter 
seas and the wide, hard frozen plains over 
which the storm moans to search for you. 
But they could not find you, and now they roam 
on aimlessly, longing to discover where you 
are and to bring you a greeting. I wish I 
could fill your life with all that is beautiful 
and happy ; but with all my wishing I could not 
light for you a little tree on Christmas Eve, and 
now on New Year’s Day I cannot even stretch 
out my hands to you. Ever since this morn- 
ing I fancied that this day surely could not 
pass without a word from you coming to me; 
it seemed as if I must hear your voice quite 
softly in the distance, as in those long gone 
days when you once said : ‘ And if it may not 
be happiness, then let it at least be what is next 
best ! * And what you called ‘ next best ’ was 
so much richer and tenderer, so much more 
filled with kindness and care than all what 
others are able to offer as highest happiness, 
that I am afraid you have spoilt me very 
much, so that I now feel quite forlorn. 

But lest this letter might do you harm and 
make you a prey to the ever-lurking little 


90 


THE LETTERS 


evil spirit of vanity, I will quickly add that 
I always suffer more or less from the great 
home-sickness for the past, more so now 
perhaps when I feel transplanted from that 
far eastern town where I had got rooted in 
such utterly different surroundings. He who 
once knows and loves the East is no longer 
adapted to the western world. One cannot 
help wondering at it, and reason forces us to 
recognise the fact that the coming century 
will belong to the West, but we never more 
can feel quite at home in it, and there remains 
a consciousness of inner estrangement How 
did Kipling, that great Oriental, ever get 
reconciled to the West ? I understand so 
entirely the home-sickness for the East which 
trembles through all his works, like a leit- 
motiv of yearning, incomprehensible to those 
whose best years have not been spent beyond 
Suez. 

I thought so much to-day of English officials 
whom I had known years ago in India, and 
whom I later on met again in some little town in 
England, pensioned off and aged. In India they 
had often grumbled about the climate, the 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 91 

natives, and the rate of exchange, but, notwith- 
standing all their complaints, they always felt 
like gods, even if it were only like eighth- 
quarter or demigods, and, without their know- 
ing it, the years spent out there had been their 
happiest time. One mostly is happy without 
knowing it, and we realise that we were happy 
by ceasing to be so. In Bath or Torquay, 
under grey skies, in narrow rooms, with an 
awkward Mary Ann, against whom just ex- 
asperation never dare find vent in a volley 
of expressive Hindustani blessings, surrounded 
by people who know nothing of the godlikeness 
which belongs to every sahib in the towns 
that end in ‘ abad ’ and ‘ pore ’ ; yes, there 
those poor dethroned ones first fully realised 
how beautiful life once had been, and the great 
home-sickness for the East crept into their 
hearts and settled there. 

Here I often feel like one of those pensioned- 
off English officials, or like a poor little 
banished queen, of whom nobody notices that 
she once upon a time wore a small golden 
crown. When I try to squeeze through the 
crowd in the streets, where nobody recognises 


92 


THE LETTERS 


me, I sometimes say to myself, that if I fell 
down dead, I should be carried into a cold, 
grey morgue, and nobody would know who I 
was ; and then I long for that distant town, 
where every one knew me, and where, when 
I left, they all stood at the station waving 
their handkerchiefs to me. 

It seems to me as if the consciousness of 
our own smallness and unimportance rested 
like a heavy weight, not only on poor little 
wanderers like myself, but on most modern 
people. We suffer from our own diminutiveness 
and from the narrow limits of our life and 
knowledge since the endlessness of space and 
time have been taught to us. People of 
former epochs cannot have known this con- 
trast between human smallness and the world’s 
infinity ; they must have been more contented, 
because they fancied they were made in the 
right proportion to everything else. Those 
people who lived in old houses with high 
gables, and also those people who nowadays 
remain quietly in small centres, where every- 
body knows everybody else, and where the 
belief in one’s own importance never is shaken, 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 93 

to me seem enviable beings, for there is 
nothing more satisfactory than to be able 
to believe in oneself. In such small com- 
munities also flourishes that highest blossom 
of the conviction of personal importance ; the 
belief in an eternal individual continuance. 
For it seems utterly impossible that Mr. A., 
with whom we have played at ninepins every 
Saturday for thirty years, or that Mrs. B., 
with whom we have lived in rivalry ever since 
school, should suddenly be entirely wiped out, 
as if they had never been. That cannot 
happen to such important people. They are 
only invisible for a time and have started on 
that long journey which we all must once 
undertake ; but afterwards we shall of course 
meet them again. 

But he who has been thrown by the waves 
on countless strange shores, he who has seen 
that everywhere, and since times infinite, 
millions and millions are born and buried 
without leaving by their coming and going 
more trace than the swarms of insects which, 
for a moment, glide through the rays of the 
sun ; he loses the belief in the importance of 


94 


THE LETTERS 


all transitory phases, and he doubts the inner 
necessity of an eternal continuance for all 
those ephemeral, antlike existences which in 
endless, unchanging repetitions ever arise 
anew to disappear again. And when we then 
finally reach the conviction that we also are 
just one in the swarm of human day-flies, then 
we long for comfort, were it even through 
fiction, and we yearningly remember those 
who, by their friendship and tenderness, gave 
us for a while the illusion, as if we were, 
after all, quite important little flies, whose 
welfare was a matter of great consequence 
to another being. 

And because I realise all this to-day so 
very deeply here in a strange land, where 
nobody cares how poor little banished queens 
begin the New Year, therefore I feel home- 
sick for — well, let us say for Peking! 


LETTER XVIII 

New York, Ja 7 iuary 1900. 

A COLD grey day, far too dark for painting. 
A general feeling of listlessness and of dis* 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 95 

comfort. The book which one has been 
reading by the fireside seems dull. The 
view out of the window bores one just as 
much. Those people almost seem enviable 
who say self-complacently, ‘ I have never yet 
felt bored, 5 and who thus give the measure of 
their own appalling dulness if they really 
are not capable of noticing how tiresome is 
most of that with which life is filled. 

I wish ! — what do I wish ? — I wish I were 
going with you on a strange and perilous 
expedition into some marvellous country, if 
possible into an unexplored star. But now, 
please, don’t rush straight away into vain 
deductions. For that you are not vain is 
just one of your nice qualities, and every 
true woman must find a vain man horrid, for 
he encroaches on her domain. And besides, 
the only reason for my choosing you as a 
travelling companion in the unexplored star 
is that Livingstone, who certainly would 
have proved very useful there, is dead 
already. 

But truly and in earnest, I have some- 
times such a burning longing to be and to 


96 


THE LETTERS 


achieve something. I often feel as if I con- 
sisted of nothing but unused capacities, and 
as if all opportunities to give one’s measure, 
which ought to be mine, passed by me and 
went to others, who in their turn don’t know 
what to make of them. For humanity is 
divided into people of whom never is asked 
nearly that which they could easily achieve; 
and into others, on whom demands are made 
to which they are not equal in the least — 
the latter being the happier, for a part of 
their incapacity consists in their never noticing 
how incapable they are. 

The outcome of this arrangement is that 
nobody stands where he ought to. When 
some one suddenly is called to a respon- 
sible post, we congratulate him and say : ‘ At 
last the right man in the right place,’ and 
meanwhile we think, ‘ What a mess he’ll make 
of it.’ And generally we are right in this 
latter supposition. 

That reminds me of the little boy whom 
his mother scolded because he was playing 
with wet earth : ‘ Oh, Georgie, what a mess 
you ’re making ! ’ 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 97 


The child answered : ‘ I ’m only playing at 
government, mother.’ 

‘ How so, Georgie ? ’ 

‘ Well, father said government was making 
a mess of everything.’ 

And a great mess of the world’s govern- 
ment it evidently is, that I sit here, looking 
alternately into the chimney and out on the 
street, and that everything else which I could 
do besides would be equally useless. 

It seems to me as if so many women always 
sit about, waiting for the door to open and 
some one to come in. 


LETTER XIX 

New York , January 1900. 

I WAS interrupted yesterday, otherwise I 
don’t know how long I should have gone on 
writing grey-in-grey meditations to you about 
the world’s general mismanagement. There- 
fore be thankful that yesterday the door really 
did open and Madame Baltykoff came in with 
a little sable toque on her head, which suited 
her as naturally as the shining fur does a cat. 

G 


98 


THE LETTERS 


‘ Why, how enviably unoccupied you look,’ 
said Madame Baltykoff ; ‘ and I am so worn 
out with everything which I must see and 
where I must be seen. In no country of the 
world have I heard so much about social duties 
as here : it ’s almost as if they were to make up 
for all others. To-day a New York lady took 
me in tow and we went to a lunch, an exhibi- 
tion, a charity sale, and three at-homes. 
Every time, when I was just overcoming the 
inevitable stiff dulness of arrival and begin- 
ning to enjoy myself a little, my social pilot 
made desperate signals at me to start afresh, 
because there remained so many more places 
at which we had to be seen. I felt at last like 
a criminal hurrying about to try and provide 
himself with an alibi. And now I have yet 
another call to make on a former country- 
woman of mine, and there I want you to 
accompany me. Besides it is not good for 
you at all to be brooding like a feminine 
Oblomoff.’ 

And as all my desire for activity has always 
ended by my letting myself drift at the will of 
outward powers, I went out with Madame 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 99 


Baltykofif into the cold, grey wintry world and 
made the acquaintance of Miss Tatiana de 
Gribojedoff. 

Yes, dear friend, she is really called so, even 
if you read the name three times over, and the 
‘ Miss ’ also has a right to be. 

Tatiana’s father of course was a Russian, but 
her mother was the daughter of Mr. Carmichael 
from Illinois, who was American Consul in 
Archangel, and in that cold corner of the world 
little Tatiana’s cradle stood. Madame de 
Gribojedoff, nee Carmichael, does not seem ever 
to have felt at home there, which I for my part 
do not blame her for. She endeavoured with 
success to bring up Tatiana in an attitude 
distinctly critical and disdainful towards all 
things Russian, and to inculcate in her 
an unquestioning admiration for all that 
is Anglo - Saxon. When Tatiana’s father 
died, leaving them a large fortune, the two 
ladies emigrated back to America, and since 
her mother’s death, Tatiana lives in New York 
as an independent spinster. 

Her little house is stuffed with all those 
things which wary travellers carefully avoid 


. L.ofC. 


100 


THE LETTERS 


buying on their journeys. From the Niagara 
Falls she has brought back Indian mocassins, 
manufactured for export by utterly un-Indian 
hands : they are hung up on a wall close to a 
Spanish fan, on which a bull-fight is depicted. 
In Mexico she has bought fruits carved in 
Puebla marble, pink peaches, green mangoes, 
brown figs : they rest on a bracket together 
with large glistening shells, and specimens of 
different corals, the outcome of an excursion 
to Havannah. From Sorrento Miss Tatiana 
has brought back little bookshelves made of 
olivewood, and on them stand, next to Roman 
mosaic boxes and a diminutive reproduction of 
the Vesta Temple, a whole collection of glasses 
from different watering-places, a course of 
whose mineral springs treatment Miss Tatiana 
has gone through. All kinds of inscriptions 
are engraved on these glasses : ‘ Zur freund- 
lichen Erinnerung an Schlangenbad/ ‘Wohl 
bekomm’s ’ ; on one goblet is photographed a 
view of the Trinkhalle at Baden-Baden. Per- 
haps it is owing to the great amount of health- 
improving liquids which Miss Tatiana has 
absorbed that she is so painfully thin. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM ioi 


She was seated on one side of the chimney, 
and opposite to her sat a small, fat, elderly 
gentleman, whom Madame Baltykoff greeted 
as Ivan Ivanovitch, and who was introduced to 
me as Mr. Bashmakoff. The hostess and her 
guest were evidently just having a political 
debate, for she looked excited, and as soon as 
we were seated she went on saying : ‘ Truly, Mr. 
Bashmakoff, every day when I read of the 
persecution and oppression to which the poor 
Finlanders are subjected, I am thankful that I 
emigrated and became a free citizen of the 
United States.’ 

‘But, dear Tatiana Feodorovna,’ answered 
the small fat man, ‘nothing would have hap- 
pened to you in Russia, for you aren’t at all 
a Finlander that I know of.’ 

‘That is a cowardly subterfuge. In such a 
case one must always identify oneself with the 
persecuted. As I cannot help all the wrong 
which is being committed in Russia, I have at 
least protested openly against it by leaving 
the country. I would no longer countenance 
tyranny.’ 

‘ Always the same, always the same fire in 


102 


THE LETTERS 


our dear Tatiana Feodorovna/ sighed the old 
man. 

‘And with you always the same provoking 
way of calling me at least once in every 
sentence by that silly Russian appellation — 
Tatiana Feodorovna!’ 

Mr. Bashmakoff pressed his hand on the 
protruding region of his body where somewhere 
behind all that fat the heart is supposed to be, 
and he answered : ‘ It is because during a life- 
time it has been the sweetest name in the 
world to me.’ 

The old lady seemed somewhat mollified by 
this speech, and turned to me : ‘ You will agree 
with me that it is hard, considering my views 
as a free American, to be burdened with such 
a name as Tatiana de Gribojedoff.’ 

‘Don’t forget, dear Tatiana Feodorovna, how 
often I have asked you to change that name,’ 
said the small, fat man, again pressing his hand 
on his heart. 

The old lady laughed aloud: ‘No, really, 
Gribojedoff or Bashmakoff — there isn’t much 
to choose from ! Oh, if you had been called 
Washington or Lincoln, or even if you could 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 103 


boast of a plain Anglo-Saxon Brown or Smith, 
I might have taken the matter into considera- 
tion — but as it is . . and she shrugged her 
shoulders, and both laughed about this joke, 
which is renewed every time that Mr. Bashma- 
koff comes from Archangel on a yearly trip to 
New York to visit the love of his early youth 
in the land of her choice. 

‘ The Philippines cause me much anxiety/ 
said the Russian-American, pointing with a 
responsibility-laden mien to some newspapers 
lying beside her : ‘ it is evidently necessary to 
send fresh troops out there. I only hope that 
the State Department is prepared to act with 
the utmost energy in the suppression of the 
insurgents. I have no doubt that foreign 
intrigues are at work there, got up against us 
by those to whom it is an abomination to see 
us getting a foothold in the enslaved East ; if 
it were not for such underhand dealings those 
poor, benighted people would long ago have 
recognised that we bring to them the light of 
freedom/ 

‘Perhaps they object to the land-grabbing 
which seems to be a part inherent of the process 


104 


THE LETTERS 


of civilising and enlightening/ said Madame 
Baltykoff, musingly. 

* Or, may be, your Western methods are not 
well appreciated and understood in the East, 
dear Tatiana Feodorovna; perhaps they are not 
even well suited for that part of the world/ Mr. 
Bashmakoff objected meekly. 

‘ Liberty and right are well suited every- 
where, but you Russians always fancy that you 
alone understand the East I gladly acknow- 
ledge that you are more akin to those people 
than we, but why should they be conducted 
by the roundabout way of Knout, Siberia, and 
Orthodoxy to final freedom and true faith ? * 

‘And pray what is the true faith?’ asked 
Madame Baltykoff. 

‘The true faith?’ Miss Tatiana stopped 
short a moment, but then she answered with 
quick resolution : ‘ The true faith is what we 
Anglo-Saxons believe.’ 

‘ Indeed/ said Madame Baltykoff, and then 
continued musingly, as if she were ponder- 
ing over some difficult arithmetical problem: 
‘ Methodists and Baptists, Congregationalists 
and Christian Scientists, United Brethren and 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 105 

Disciples of Christ, Latter Day Saints, 
Quakers and Shakers — not to forget the 
Mormons — they all then have the true faith?’ 

Miss Tatiana treated us still for some time 
to the animated discussion of several political 
questions. The patient Bashmakoff had to 
listen to many severe accusations against 
Russia, and she gave him to understand that 
whoever is not of Anglo-Saxon lineage can 
have but cunning schemes and mean self- 
interest for motives of all his actions. 

If Madame Baltykoff sometimes appears as 
a personified sign of interrogation, I have met 
in the person of Miss Tatiana a living asser- 
tion. She reminds me of the wife of a great 
landed proprietor in Pomerania whom I heard 
years ago abusing direct taxes. In my youth 
and ignorance of those days I asked her what 
they were, and I received the prompt answer : 
‘Direct taxes are those which we must pay 
ourselves, indirect taxes those which other 
people pay, therefore the first are bad and the 
latter are good.’ 

Miss Tatiana also possesses this gift of 
graphic definition and of unhesitatingdeduction. 


106 THE LETTERS 

LETTER XX 

New York, January 1900. 

This afternoon I went out to call on our 
Consul’s wife. I took the Elevated, for she 
lives far out in one of the streets with the 
very high numbers, that always remind me 
of newly formed regiments drawn up on the 
frontier. The houses all look so much alike 
that one could mistake each one for any one 
of the others, and in this probably their mili- 
tary character consists, for I remember how a 
young relative, newly transformed into a full- 
fledged lieutenant, once said to me enthusi- 
astically : ‘ Absolute uniformity is the ultimate 
object, and the obliteration of individuality is 
the first step towards it.’ 

As I did not find the Frau Consulin at 
home, I went for an exploration tour on my 
own hook, which I always find much more 
interesting than when patriotic New-Yorkers 
take me about sight-seeing, and expect much 
enthusiasm for some towerlike building, in 
which somewhere near the clouds a paper 
is printed, corn is sold or money changed. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 107 

Although of course, as a result of the rising 
prices of land, this increasing tendency to 
reach heaven with our earthly abodes must 
certainly be highly gratifying to those people 
who believe that all hardships are inflicted 
on us for the ultimate end of leading us 
heavenward. 

I walked very far and passed the last streets. 
Further out there are places which look as 
if you were in the Far West. Wide, empty 
plots of land, with the most astonishing little 
dwellings scattered about : tents stitched to- 
gether out of all kinds of rags and tatters, 
holes dug into earth like the caverns of pre- 
historic cave-dwellers, and next to them low 
hovels made of a patchwork of boards, lids 
of boxes, rusty pieces from some iron-plated 
roof, and sides of kerosene tin boxes, all 
nailed together. A whole population of un- 
defined professions lives there and treks 
further out as the streets with the high 
numbers advance. Perhaps such an odd hut 
figures on the first page in the book of 
remembrance of some of the present million- 
aires ! Such wonderful turns of the wheel 


108 THE LETTERS 

are known to those people who to-day are 
still forced to camp in the eccentric quarters 
of utter misery, and it helps them to bear 
their lot more easily, for they look upon it 
as a transitory condition, and they remember 
the examples of those who have worked their 
way. That is what renders poverty in the 
new countries less depressing: even the poorest 
sees the possibility of the financial marshal’s 
baton before him. That is the very reason 
why they come from over the great waters, 
to leave the old hopelessness and resignation 
behind ! 

But to-day it seemed infinitely melancholy 
to me out there, and great must have been 
the optimism that could remember the possi- 
bility of any marshal’s baton. An icy wind 
was blowing over the open land. Laden 
with cold it came sweeping from the direction 
of the great North American lakes, driving 
everything before its freezing blast, and tear- 
ing ruthlessly through all the cracks and 
fissures in those quaint and pitiable abodes 
of misery. I wonder if the inhabitants of 
those shaky, rattling, storm-beaten huts were 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 109 

also of opinion that the wind is tempered to 
the shorn lamb? When you wear a seal- 
skin jacket, such a comfortable belief always 
seems indisputable. 

During my walk to-day, I thought much 
of similar winter days spent at Peking, and 
I remembered particularly a ride which we 
took there just a year ago. It was quite as 
cold as it is here to-day. The wind came 
howling from the Mongol - Siberian plains, 
so icy and biting as if spring could never 
more return. The road stretched on endlessly 
before us along the high, gloomy town-wall. 
The towers with their projecting roofs of 
dilapidated green tiles loomed threatening 
against the lurid winter sky. In some spots 
lay hard frozen snow. Crows flew croaking 
before the gusts of wind. 

As so often in Peking, I had on that par- 
ticular day the impression as if the whole 
world were paralysed with fear, and waiting 
breathlessly for something unknown and 
sinister. Town of suffering, town of doom 
have I often called Peking— and yet, I believe 
I love the grey, dismal city. Often have I the 


IIO 


THE LETTERS 


distinct feeling of belonging to it, as if that 
world held me for ever, however far I am 
separated from it by space. 

I fear I am getting like all people who have 
lived in Peking, and who afterwards never can 
leave off writing or talking about it. 

That is the revenge which China takes on 
the white people, because they nearly all 
only go there to wrest from it a piece of land 
or some other advantage — finally it is they 
who are absorbed by China. 

Don’t let yourself be absorbed too much, 
dear friend ! 


LETTER XXI 

New York, February 1900. 
Dear Friend, — My last wandering in wintry 
New York has agreed very badly with me. 
I have been ill ever since with fever and a 
cough. Coughs and fevers are already, since 
many years, the milestones standing along 
my life’s road. Finally such a milestone 
will turn into a little cross. And where after 
that the road leads to, or whether there is 
any road at all — that nobody knows. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM iii 


But I am already a little better now. I 
am lying on a couch near the chimney. The 
white Thibetan goatskin rug, which you know, 
is spread over me. Ta goes about with a 
troubled face. I don’t know if he is distressed 
on my account, or because of the many letters 
he has lately received from home. 

Yesterday my brother gave me some 
branches of white hothouse lilac. Carefully 
wrapt in tissue paper he brought them in 
— such poor, wintry lilac ! All the little 
blossoms seemed to shiver and to wonder 
why they had been forced to hurry so much 
to get into this unfriendly world. Now the 
brown stalks on which the slender white 
flower grapes hang, stand in a slim greenish 
bronze vase beside me. The flowers have 
recovered a little, as if they were grateful to 
have after all found a tolerable abode. A faint 
smell of lilac, which almost seems artificial, 
rises from them and steals through the room. 

That perfume wakens slumbering memories, 
for lilac is a humble plant which manages 
to grow in the most different countries, and 
it reminds me of many times and places. 


1 12 


THE LETTERS 


At Garzin, the estate near Berlin on which 
I grew up, the lilacs were in flower in 
May. Four large bushes stood on the grass 
plot in front of the Schloss , and in their midst 
there was an old sun-dial. Every spring when 
the lilac bloomed, the same old invalid came 
hobbling along on a wooden leg ; he took up 
his position in the courtyard and played on 
his barrel-organ ‘ The Last Rose of Summer,’ 
or ‘ Long, Long Ago.’ I don’t know where he 
remained during winter, but in all my earliest 
spring recollections I can see the invalid 
standing there with his barrel-organ, and the 
lilac perfume fills the air, and we children 
search for five-leaved lilac blossoms — for they 
were to bring good-luck just like four-leaved 
clover. Once I presented a five - petalled 
flower to the old organ-grinder, but he did 
not seem to believe that one leaf more 
or less mattered much ; perhaps he had 
acquired that way of looking at things in 
the time when he learnt to do with but 
one leg. 

And of many other times and places the 
faint smell reminds me ! 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 113 


Even in flower-barren Peking we had lilac. 
In the gardens of all the legations stood many 
bushes. In April they were in full bloom all 
at the same time, blossoming forth overnight 
as by magic. All drawing-rooms and all 
dining-tables were then filled with the same 
white and purple glory and profusion. But 
scarce a fortnight did the flowery enchant- 
ment last. That was the only time of year 
when Peking smelt nice. 

In the days of the lilacs bloom, Sir Robert 
Hart gave regularly one of his garden parties. 
His Chinese bandsmen, who wore uniforms, 
and of whom he was so intensely proud, played 
the European tunes which a Portuguese band- 
master from Macao had taught them. And 
with the strain of all the well-known tunes, 
which were only occasionally and involun- 
tarily altered a little, there floated through 
the garden the old home smell of lilac. The 
socittt de Ptkin walked up and down the few 
avenues and exhibited Tientai’s newest and 
smartest creations ; they went in pairs, follow- 
ing the natural bent of their inclination, or 
they grouped themselves according to the 


THE LETTERS 


114 

momentary political constellation. For politics 
are a seasoning which in Peking is mixed 
freely into everything. At the end of these 
social gatherings a set of lancers was always 
danced on the small uneven grass plot. 
Every time the fiction was kept up that 
these lancers were the spontaneous expression 
of an irrepressibly buoyant mood — but they 
had always formed part of the programme 
beforehand. 

All that was entirely stereotyped — for all 
things in China have a tendency to grow 
stereotyped. 

So-called pleasures in remote places always 
seem infinitely melancholy to me. They are 
such an evident attempt at self-deception, for 
which so much goodwill is required. Small, 
pitiable exertions to try to forget where one 
is and all that is lacking. The firmly taken 
and earnestly carried out resolution also to 
be for once ‘fashionable society.’ Deep sadness 
has often oppressed me in the midst of such 
artificially transplanted and cultivated amuse- 
ments — they remind me of stunted white 
winter-lilac. That also is not the real thing. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 115 


LETTER XXII 

New York, February 1900. 

I AM still far from well, but I want to write a 
little to you, so as to give myself the illusion 
of your being here and my chatting to you. 

When I am ill I always feel so sorry for 
myself ; I should then like to take myself in 
my own arms to pet and comfort my own self. 
Good health helps us so much to deceive our- 
selves about many things ; we feel equal to 
anything and are therefore satisfied with our- 
selves, and as soon as we can manage that, all 
else is right as well. But when you are often ill, 
and the balance between what you can do and 
what you ought to do always shows a deficit 
on your side, then the whole world ends by 
appearing like an arithmetical puzzle in which 
there is always something wrong. But don’t 
gather from this that I am particularly lonely. 
The small corner of the world which from this 
couch lies within my eye-range is probably 
neither worse nor more dull than all the rest. 
A number of people come to see me, and of all 
newly-made friends, Madame Baltykoff is here 


THE LETTERS 


1 1 6 

most, and by a secret law of mysterious attrac- 
tion, Mr. Anstruther invariably drops in shortly 
after her. 

I also have books, and then there are the 
American newspapers, in which not only news 
of general interest is recorded, but which give 
such a wonderful chronicle of the everyday 
life of all one’s neighbours, who in any way 
have a claim to this much sought for con- 
spicuousness. 

The publicity of private life in America is ever 
a fresh source of astonishment to us foreigners. 
It extends to the smallest actions of the upper 
four hundred. The social cUbut of a young 
lady of that class of society is announced 
beforehand with descriptions of her personal 
appearance and of the gowns she has ordered 
in Paris ; we are informed about the money 
she can afford to spend on dress, the number 
of her gloves, her favourite flower, and her 
special ‘ flirts.’ When she gets married, 
columns are devoted to the description of her 
trousseau and her wedding presents, and exact 
calculations are made as to her flattens worth 
(in dollars). A New York lady really never 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 117 

is alone ; she constantly acts before reporters, 
who transmit to an eager crowd the important 
knowledge of all details of her life. The con- 
sciousness of being constantly observed, talked 
and written about, may have contributed to 
the American women of the upper class never 
forgetting for a moment the impression they 
create. They always are bent on pleasing, 
and they never rest before every one who 
approaches them is subjugated by their spell. 
They are always amiable, charming, and fascin- 
ating, but to healthy people from other coun- 
tries, these frail, nervous, and bloodless beings 
appear at times somewhat like unnatural 
apparitions. They live principally on admira- 
tion ; besides that, on ice-water and dainty small 
dishes at which they peck and nibble a little. 
The beefsteak side of life is an abomination to 
them ; they would like best to abolish all that 
is physical, they call it coarse and unworthy 
of higher beings, and they fancy that because 
they ignore it, it is done away with and rele- 
gated into lower spheres of society. Thanks 
to this personal lack of temperament, and 
because they are accustomed to the American 


n8 


THE LETTERS 


men, who generally seem overworked and 
preoccupied, and who age fast, the American 
ladies can indulge freely and go so far in their 
favourite pastime of flirting. An enamoured 
European, who would draw European deduc- 
tions, would err greatly ; he would probably 
be told that he was no gentleman and did not 
respect women. 

In the midst of this artificial existence the 
worship carried on with children strikes one 
as strange. It is quite a characteristic trait 
of this society. Perhaps that it dates back 
to those times, when there were so few inhabi- 
tants for the enormous country that every 
little new comer caused great joy as one more 
American citizen. Perhaps it is, on the con- 
trary, an ultra-modern feeling, for of late the 
number of children born diminishes steadily 
in the most fashionable and smartest sets in 
New York, so that each baby is possibly looked 
upon as an achievement little short of miracu- 
lous. The fair New Yorkers take small trouble 
to perpetuate their own beauty in a future 
generation. 

The weight accorded to the judgment of 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 119 

women on all intellectual matters is also a 
very striking feature. Literary and artistic 
renown is made by them ; whoever wants to 
get on must paint, write, or play, so as to please 
the leading ladies. Mostly they are far superior 
to their money-making husbands in all ques- 
tions of esprit , and nobody is more aware of 
it than they themselves, but I don’t believe 
that they suffer from this knowledge ; it seems 
to them to correspond to the wise ordainment 
of things, and they consider as becoming and 
full of mysterious charm, the mental attitude 
of a highly cultivated, most delicately refined 
woman whose somewhat more roughly shaped 
husband fails to understand her in her most 
subtle, butterfly-winged thoughts and aspira- 
tions. Enchanting, diaphanous creatures they 
are, supplied for every hour of the day with 
different bewitching garments, and they man- 
age to hide successfully before their own eyes 
the great uselessness of their existence by an 
imperturbable belief in the importance of the 
thousand little pursuits which they carry on 
in a perpetual hurry. 

But this is only one very special type which 


120 


THE LETTERS 


we strangers perhaps come to know so quickly, 
because these ladies have no positive occupa- 
tion with duties brooking of no delay, and 
because, with all their seeming business and 
hurry, they only try to find new objects with 
which to fill the hours. A traveller always 
knows least about the real professional workers 
of a strange country, for they have no time 
to spare for him — and how many truly eager 
and working women must there be in this 
nation of seventy-five millions ! 

LETTER XXIII 

New York, March 1900. 

You will never guess, dear friend, who came 
to see me to-day ! 

Father Hofer! But a Hofer quite un-Chinese, 
grown completely Roman Catholic in his out- 
ward appearance. I had seen him last a year 
and a half ago at Pei-ta-ho, where he was on a 
visit to his minister. Like all Catholic priests 
in China, he then wore a pigtail, of scanty 
nature, and Chinese clothes. On account of 
the great heat they were made of thin white 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 121 


pongee, and he always looked so immaculate 
that I once told him that his exterior was like 
the lilies of the fields ; but as to spinning and 
toiling, he did not leave matters to God, but 
followed in that respect Martha’s example 
more than Mary’s. To-day, in the retrogressive 
transformation of an ordinary black priest 
dress, I scarcely recognised him at first. But 
otherwise he was quite as of old, jolly, ener- 
getic, and full of sound common-sense. I 
cannot tell you how happy I was to meet 
some one coming straight from Peking. I 
believe I was as delighted as Ta, who made 
Kotowlike salutations to the Father, beaming 
all over his sallow round face at being able to 
talk Chinese once more. 

Naturally I asked Hofer at once about you, 
but he told me that from what he had heard 
in Peking, he thought you would only be back 
from your great exploration in June. So it 
will yet be many a week before I can hear 
from you, and during all that time my letters, 
which I always write with the illusion of im- 
mediately reaching you, will be waiting for 
you at Shanghai. 


122 


THE LETTERS 


The Father told me about all friends at 
Peking, and although he only goes there from 
his province every few years, yet he knows its 
ins and outs as if he held the thread of all its 
big and small intrigues in his hands. He is 
an example how wonderfully well informed 
the members of the high Catholic clergy are ; 
they outdo by far all those governmental news 
and gossip collectors called diplomats. 

After the priest had told me about the last 
events in the socUte de Pekin , I asked him the 
object of his present journey. He answered, 
that he is on his way to Europe to call atten- 
tion to the fact that in China serious events 
are brewing. He told me that since several 
months disturbances are going on in his pro- 
vince, and that they are fomented by secret 
societies bearing a markedly anti-foreign char- 
acter. ‘ We are accustomed to that/ he said, 
‘ but what causes me serious uneasiness is the 
fact that the rioters are openly countenanced 
by the provincial mandarins, who in their turn 
seem to rely on the protection of the highest 
authorities in Peking. Missionaries and native 
Christians have been assaulted without its 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 123 

being possible to obtain the punishment of 
the evil-doers, and all high officials lately- 
appointed are noted for their hate of Christians 
and their relations with the secret societies. 
The reason is that in Peking the fear of the 
Lord no longer reigns, which, specially with 
Orientals, is the beginning of all wisdom. 
We missionaries in the interior are always 
the first to notice the consequences of such 
a change of attitude, we also hear much that 
is spoken too softly for other ears, and 
throughout China the word is being passed 
“that the foreign devils need no longer be 
feared, because their hour has come.” Favier 
believes, just as I do, in a great approaching 
uprising, for he has been warned like myself 
by his native converts. The leaders of the 
Society of the Great Knife announce their 
programme quite openly : “ First the native 
Christians, then the foreigners.” I brought 
information of all this to the proper place at 
Peking, but there I was given to understand 
that we missionaries had been spoilt by too 
much protection and had thus grown over- 
bearing, whilst we formerly had looked upon 


124 


THE LETTERS 


persecution as the inevitable accompaniment 
of all missionary work, without clamouring 
perpetually for help from men-of-war and 
punitive expeditions. Upon this I left Peking 
with a last warning : the danger, I said, does 
not concern this time the missionaries more 
than all other foreigners — perhaps that you 
here in Peking will soon fare even worse than 
we in our provinces.’ 

I could scarcely believe what Father Hofer 
told me. I reminded him of the perfect care- 
lessness and safety with which all strangers 
used to live not only in Peking itself, but also 
during summer in the lonely temples scattered 
about the hills. 

* How could all that change so quickly?’ 1 
asked him. 

‘ Many causes acted together,’ he answered. 
‘ Since some years there are famines in several 
provinces, and such intense misery is prevail- 
ing there as is absolutely unknown in Europe. 
Many workmen also fear that their small liveli- 
hoods will be threatened by the building of 
railways and the steam-navigation on the rivers, 
of which they have heard vague rumours as 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 125 


of monstrous innovations. News of outward 
events travel slowly in China, and I remember 
to have spoken in 1897 with mandarins and 
priests from the neighbourhood of Jehol who 
knew nothing as yet of the war with Japan, 
but however slowly, still the news of the last 
European annexations have finally spread 
throughout wider circles, and they have ex- 
cited humiliation and bitterness. Those newly 
acquired foreign possessions, in which the art 
of government is practised according to Euro- 
pean bureaucratic routine, have in their turn 
become centres of anti-foreign feeling, for so 
very often the little ways and means by which 
Chinese susceptibilities could have been spared 
were completely and arrogantly set aside. The 
growing dissatisfaction turned at first against 
the weak and rotten Government which had 
allowed the foreign encroachments, and which 
proved more helpless before every new aggres- 
sion. Then it seemed for a short time as if a 
general awakening of China were really near 
at hand, for a reform party had sprung up and 
was fast spreading, having enlisted the young 
Emperor’s sympathies.’ 


126 


THE LETTERS 


‘ I remember that,’ said I ; ‘ but don’t you 
think that those young men were entirely 
unpractical and unfit for any responsible 
post ? ’ 

‘ Well, yes,’ answered Hofer, ‘ they did have 
a great many vague, unpractical notions, and 
they would have blundered like most men 
when first starting in the ruling business, but 
they also had some clear and noble aims. 
Old abuses were to be abolished with almost 
feverish eagerness, and means were sought for 
putting China again on a footing that would 
inspire respect to the world, for the reformers 
had a keen sense of dignity, and resented the 
way in which China had been treated, which 
is the treatment ever reserved for those who 
know not how to defend what they possess. If 
the movement had been allowed to continue, 
great results might have been achieved. It 
was one of those sudden, and, perhaps, last 
chances which fate sometimes holds out to 
a people; civilisation, innovations, perhaps 
even Christianity, hung in the balance, for 
Christianity will only really spread in China 
when members of the upper classes begin 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 127 

professing it, and there were men among the 
reformers who leaned towards it. Yes, it 
was a great chance, but it was allowed to 
slip. The anti-progressive party, with the 
Dowager-Empress at its head, saw quickly 
that if it came to serious reforms of the 
whole system, their own days, with all their 
alluring possibilities of sinecures and ill- 
gotten gains, would be numbered, so they 
suddenly turned on the Emperor and his 
friends.’ 

‘ It was not thought of much consequence at 
the time,’ said I ; ‘ I remember how one talked 
about a little palace revolution.’ 

‘Exactly,’ answered Hofer, ‘for, as has ever 
been the case, the foreigners in Peking knew 
little of what was going on, nobody inter- 
fered, and not the slightest real protection 
nor moral countenance was given to those 
men who had tried to bring about what the 
foreigners themselves had preached to China, 
enlightenment and reform. Unconcerned, the 
foreigners looked on how this great and pro- 
mising movement was smothered, and the 
representatives of all the civilised powers 


128 


THE LETTERS 


prided themselves on their diplomatically 
correct attitude of non-interference in internal 
Chinese questions. Under their eyes time 
again was put back for years, and reaction 
and oppression once more ruled supreme in 
Peking, inaugurated by numerous executions 
about whose cruelty and atrocious details 
dark rumours leaked out from the Imperial 
City and circulated in whispers through the 
awe-stricken land. Nobody seemed to have 
any foreboding that in those days seeds were 
sown whose fruits we shall see ripening only 
too soon. For after having once taken the 
retrograde road the Empress could not stop. 
After having in September 1898 nipped reform 
in the bud, she could not do otherwise than 
lean more and more on the reactionary ele- 
ments. She has very cleverly succeeded in 
leading general discontent away from her 
person and her Government, and in directing 
it against the strangers ; and she has given 
the anti-foreign party to understand that it 
may count on her support. The Dowager- 
Empress certainly is much overrated, and she 
has no idea of the real distribution of power 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 129 

in the world, but she is, like many so-called 
great people, past - mistress in the art of 
watching over her own momentary interests, 
and she also recognises in time which party 
in her country is the strongest to lean upon. 
For many years she stood at the head of 
the progressive party, which in China, of 
course, always means a mild dose of pro- 
gress. In the time of the Chinese defeats 
by the Japanese she looked for and found 
support from the foreign powers, and when 
she recognised the growing bitterness in the 
country against the foreigners, she veered 
round to the reactionaries. To-day all the 
anti-foreign mandarins and the secret societies 
know that the Dowager-Empress only waits 
for their first victories to declare herself openly 
in their favour.’ 

‘ But surely/ said I, ‘ it is not possible that 
one will only just look on and wait what is 
going to happen next? ’ 

Father Hofer answered : * I hope to succeed 
in convincing people in Europe of the im- 
minence of peril. Bishop Favier and I found 
no credence in Peking. A crisis would be 
1 


130 


THE LETTERS 


highly inconvenient to all, therefore nobody 
will admit that one can see it fast approach- 
ing. You see, the watchword has been passed 
that calm and order prevail in China, and that 
all capital invested there will soon yield enor- 
mous profits. Whoever tries to shake this 
comfortable optimism is naturally unwelcome, 
and most unwelcome to the financiers, whose 
influence in things Chinese has been the most 
disastrous of all. For the sake of these gentle- 
men, who sit snugly in Europe, and who in 
their own persons can never become the 
victims of Chinese fanatics or wars — for their 
sake railway and mining concessions were 
wrung from China almost by force, causing 
exasperation and hatred. And yet in the 
opinion of the financiers matters never were 
carried off quickly enough, and to their own 
taste they never obtained sufficient privileges. 
More than any Government the financiers were 
convinced of their own omniscience, and they 
would never listen to objections made to them 
from Peking.’ 

‘Yes,’ said I, ‘that’s a question about which 
my brother, like all representatives of great 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 131 

capitalists at Peking, has a tale to tell. But 
not only their own agents never obtained 
enough for them, the foreign ministers also 
complained that they were compelled to 
exact concessions from the Chinese in a 
high - handed way which they considered 
harmful.’ 

The priest continued : ‘ I knew rather well 
some of the high Peking mandarins who were 
appointed to conduct such negotiations with 
the foreign representatives. There were some 
well-intentioned and just men amongst them 
who had made up their minds to the necessity 
of certain reforms and concessions. But they 
have come in despair to me complaining that 
always further-going demands were made upon 
them, which they could not possibly recom- 
mend to the throne. They said that never 
were Chinese feelings taken into consideration, 
and that they saw no end to the ever fresh 
exactions. But step by step they were forced 
to give way. At last one of them said to me : 
“The humiliations and exactions into whose 
acceptance I am compelled to persuade my 
Government will end by bringing the re- 


132 


THE LETTERS 


actionary anti-foreign party into power, and 
I shall finally pay for it all with my head.” 
And both of these predictions have since come 
true : the greedy insatiability of the foreigners 
has driven the Chinese Government into the 
arms of the reactionaries, and that same 
Chinese negotiator has become one of their 
first victims, a kind of scapegoat. After 
having possessed the highest honours his 
country can confer, he is to-day living in 
banishment in Turkestan, that is to say, if 
he is still amongst the living. He is a truly 
tragical figure of modern Chinese history.’ 

‘ But what can yet be done ? ’ I asked. 

‘First of all, never to show in Peking the 
slightest weakness and inconsistency, for even 
the Chinese will not let themselves be treated 
as they have been and rest satisfied without 
thinking how to use the first opportunity for 
revenge. The steps taken can never be re- 
traced, therefore watchfulness and anticipation 
of all eventualities are now a matter of self- 
preservation. The Empress might also be 
given to understand that at the first disorder 
the foreigners would take part for the reformers 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 133 

and for the Emperor, and put him into power 
again. That threat is a trump which, strange 
to say, has never been played. But the first 
of all measures ought to be sufficient mili- 
tary preparations for all emergencies, and to 
hold mounted men in readiness, who might 
be landed at the first notice to protect the 
railroad between Tientsin and Peking, for we 
must never forget that fear is, after all, the 
only real hold which the white man has over 
the Oriental.’ 

‘And now you are going to report on all 
this in Europe? ’ 

‘Yes, I consider it my duty to warn once 
more, for if the present moment is allowed 
to slip by without a check being put on the 
Empress and her friends, those very things 
must necessarily occur which one would escape 
from, and we should see a catastrophe in China 
such as has never yet been. Then indeed 
would commerce and all enterprises in China 
be interrupted for years, and we should be 
driven into complications, expenses, and sacri- 
fices whose end cannot be foreseen.’ 


*34 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER XXIV 

New York, March 1900. 

This morning the mail again brought a 
letter from China for Ta. I gave it him. 
After a while he came back, and even through 
the Oriental stolidity of his countenance great 
perturbation could be seen. He said that he 
must entreat me to let him go back at once to 
Peking as his mother insisted on his returning. 
I could not understand this, for we send money 
regularly to his mother, so that she is really 
better off than if Ta were with her. But he 
remained unmoved by all I could say, and only 
repeated that it was a letter after whose receipt 
he could not tarry any longer, if he would not 
be an absolutely worthless son. Happily just 
then Father Hofer came to lunch with us. I 
put the case before him, and asked for his 
advice. Ta was called in. They had a long 
consultation in Chinese, the priest read the 
letter, and then he turned to me. ‘ Well,’ he 
said, ‘ here we have an immediate confirmation 
of what I told you a few days ago. The 
Chinese converts in and around Peking seem 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 135 

to know that hard times are near at hand, and 
that great events are brewing. Ta’s mother, 
who is a widow, lives with her younger 
children and with Ta’s wife, like so many 
Christians in the neighbourhood of the Petang, 
and she is evidently terribly frightened be- 
cause she has heard threats against the 
Christians, the foreigners, and all those who 
have anything whatever to do with them. 
The letter is dictated by her to a relative, and 
he adds on his own account that Ta ought to 
make haste to return. He says that Ta being 
a Tartar and bannerman, he really had no 
legal right to go any farther than a certain 
zone around Peking. Several times inquiries 
have already been made about him to his 
mother, who so far has been able to put off the 
questions by subterfuges or by small presents. 
But it seems that now some men who are ill- 
disposed towards his family have begun talking 
about Ta’s prolonged absence, and to purchase 
these people’s silence sums would be required 
which Ta’s relatives never could raise, and if 
they should be denounced by these enemies 
they would be imprisoned, put to torture, and 


136 


THE LETTERS 


would lose all they possess, particularly in the 
present time when all Christians do well to 
keep quiet, so as not to attract notice.’ 

‘ But do you believe that the whole story is 
true ? ’ I asked the Father. 

* Oh yes,’ he answered, ‘ for it is so essentially 
Chinese. Nowhere as in China does every 
single individual possess so many enemies, that 
is, people who sit upon him and who will use 
anything they know to his disadvantage for 
the purpose of fleecing him. It is the country 
of denunciations and extortions. Everybody 
there lives in perpetual fear of some one else 
more powerful. That is the rule through all 
ranks. Secret societies, great spying systems 
spread through the whole land like invisible 
nets, and they have now turned their activity 
against the Christians and all those who deal 
with the foreigners. In my opinion it is the 
sinister prelude of a great catastrophe, for all 
the present doings remind me entirely of the 
times preceding the massacre of the foreigners 
at Tientsin in 1870.’ 

‘And what do you advise me to do about 
Ta?’ 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 137 

* I am afraid you will have to decide on 
sending him home, for the anxiety about his 
mother will not allow him to be quieted any 
more, and he evidently considers it his duty 
to return to her. I need not tell you how 
much a Chinaman venerates his parents — that 
Chinese characteristic even the most superficial 
guide-books contain. Although I for my part 
through many years’ experience have come 
to entertain some doubts whether this venera- 
tion really is so very great, certainly every 
Chinese will try to keep up the appearance of 
being an excellent son, and for that end he 
will even be ready to sacrifice much. Ta 
evidently is loth to leave you; he tells me that, 
if he had no mother, he would cut off his pig- 
tail and remain for ever with you, and more 
than that no Chinaman can say; but he has 
made up his mind that he must go home. 
They all lay such enormous value on certain 
things which in their opinion belong to out- 
ward decorum. I have known Chinese 
servants to nurse harsh, unjust masters with 
the utmost devotion through smallpox or 
typhoid, and not out of pity or attachment, 


138 


THE LETTERS 


but merely for appearances’ sake — they would 
not seem to be faithless servants. That same 
feeling shows itself daily when we entertain 
guests in China; then everything will go to 
perfection in our houses — to that our Chinese 
servants will see for their own sakes, because 
where they serve, things are to look well. It is 
a question of face , and Ta’s wish to return 
home is in my opinion also much more a 
matter of appearances than of inclination. I 
bet that according to his feelings he would 
prefer staying with you — although after a 
thirty years’ residence in China I have given 
up making guesses about the feelings of the 
Chinese. They are the eternally inscrutable.’ 

Then we talked about Ta’s return journey, 
and came to the conclusion that it would cause 
too many difficulties to let him travel home 
alone by way of San Francisco, for I feel 
responsible for this yellow human being whom 
I have carried away from his own world. 
Finally, Father Hofer offered to take Ta with 
him on his way to Europe and then back to 
China, and we gladly accepted. They are to 
start in a few days. Ta himself is evidently 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 139 


very sorry to leave us, but on the other hand 
he seems pleased to accompany a high ecclesi- 
astical dignitary, who, as business agent of the 
Church, impresses him more than my brother, 
who is merely in the service of a temporal 
firm ! 

But ever since all this has been decided 
upon, my heart is heavy ! 


LETTER XXV 

New York, March 1900. 

Dearest Friend, — This morning my mood is 
as grey and dismal as the bit of sky which I 
see from the window, and along which clouds 
after clouds are sweeping past towards the 
sea. 

This morning I accompanied Ta to the 
steamer on which he has left with Father 
Hofer for Europe. Early this morning he 
came in, like all other days, to bring my 
brother’s shining boots, and his clothes care- 
fully brushed and folded. All the regularity 
and method of his race showed in this small 
action of doing his work punctually to the last 


140 


THE LETTERS 


minute. But his face was quite changed and 
swollen up from crying, so that his slit eyes 
almost disappeared. The idea of letting him 
go seemed suddenly so hard, that I also felt 
tears rising to my eyes, and seeing how un- 
happy he was I said, ‘ Won’t you stay? There 
is time yet, Ta.’ But then his face contracted 
and his lips puckered up into that curious 
Oriental smile which we Westerners never 
wholly comprehend, and which appears on 
occasions when we deem it quite out of place 
and even shocking. It is rooted, I believe, in 
a certain shyness and touching humility, and is 
supposed to say : ‘ My affairs are altogether 
unworthy of being allowed to cause you any 
disturbing thought.’ And thus poor Ta 
grinned whilst he was very near crying, and 
he answered my question by putting his 
finger on his mouth, shaking his head and 
saying very softly, ‘ No speak, Taitai .’ 

Yes, he was right: why should we ever 
in life speak about that which cannot be 
changed ? 

Ta’s departure quite had the character of a 
small ovation. The housemaids in their smart 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 141 

white caps surrounded him, some brought him 
little souvenirs, and all called out : ‘ Happy 
voyage, Ta! Come back soon! But don’t 
bring back a Chinese wife, Ta.’ 

And again his poor, tear-stained face con- 
tracted in forced smiles, as is required by good- 
breeding in the Far East when you feel right 
thoroughly moved and sad. 

I drove with Ta to the ship where I was to 
put him in charge of Father Hofer, from 
Central Park down to the harbour, through 
the many different streets which grow ever 
poorer, uglier, and rougher. It is like descend- 
ing a long ladder whose steps mark the 
different grades of material wealth from the 
palaces of Fifth Avenue to the most miserable 
tenement houses, from the Waldorf to the 
squalid hiding-places of mysterious existences, 
and to those small shops and bars which look 
as if they had been temporarily put up, and 
which one is quite astonished to meet yet any- 
where in New York. That long road leads 
from dazzling heights to darkest abysses, from 
those who, flying before boredom, rush from 
pleasure to pleasure, to those others who, in 


142 


THE LETTERS 


the struggle against hunger and cold, hurry 
onward from toil to toil. 

On the steamer the ever same confusion 
reigned which always characterises the last 
hour before departure — the running, hurry, 
searching for friends, the excited talk and 
nervous laughter, the handshaking, kissing and 
crying. Numberless and varied are the 
human types which the New World sends back 
to Europe on each of these steamers, but they 
all come under the three great classes of those 
who travel either for business, pleasure, or 
health. Most of the travellers are accompanied 
by a lot of friends who see them off, so that a 
thick throng crowds up the deck. The ship’s 
officers stand amongst it, as indifferent to 
comical as to melancholy scenes of fare- 
well, which they have all seen enacted over 
and over again ; they give orders in loud, clear 
voices, with a certain air of correctness, as if 
every detail of their persons were in accordance 
with certain given regulations — they strike one 
as eminently European. 

It was only with the greatest difficulty that 
I found Father Hofer. I handed Ta over to 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 143 


him, and he promised me once more to care 
for him and bring him safely to China. And 
then the bell sounded to warn those off the 
ship who were not going to sail. Once more 
I shook hands with both, and I said to Ta, 
‘God bless you,’ for in that last moment I 
knew by a kind of revelation that he was 
starting with open eyes to meet a great danger, 
simply because he considered it right to go — 
in his way a hero, notwithstanding the pigtail 
and slit eyes — and the wish accompanied him 
on his road, which has followed so many 
heroes, ‘ God bless you.’ 

After that I was surrounded by the throng 
of human beings who all hurried and strove 
for something, who all had their cares ; in 
their midst, pushed and lifted as by waves, I 
got on to the gangway and into the dark shed 
close to which the steamer lay. I stood still 
for a moment, and through the broad doorway, 
which was just going to be closed, I looked 
back once more on the ship. It was no longer 
fastened to the wharf, a quiver seemed to be 
running over the monster as if a giant became 
conscious of his power. My eyes once more 


144 


THE LETTERS 


sought for Ta and Father Hofer — but already 
the high dark doors closed and shut off the 
view. 

Going back towards the streets, I walked 
behind an old and bent woman who was 
crying bitterly ; a little boy was leading her, 
and I heard him say consolingly, ‘ Never mind, 
granny dear, they’ll come back.’ But the old 
woman continued to cry. She had probably 
seen many people go who never returned, and 
she knew that people occasionally come back, 
but that times never do. 

Like a load the feeling to-day rests on me, 
that life is composed of nothing but successive 
episodes, and it seems to me, dear friend, as if 
existence were chopped up into little bits, 
and each place in it where a cut has been 
made hurts, and won’t join to the next bit. A 
sudden sense of homelessness crushes me, and 
makes me feel so small and forlorn in this 
wide world where the rushing of millions only 
intensifies loneliness. Poor Ta always gave 
me the illusion that there still existed a link 
between me and those Chinese years. In 
some respects they were sad years, and they 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 145 


brought disappointments, bitter news from 
home, and long, weary^hours, when the great 
riddle of existence seemed more than ever 
oppressive and unanswerable — but ... I realise 
only now how much I had taken root there — 
and besides . . . also over the grey days do 
we mourn once they are gone — only because 
they are gone, and because they carried away 
with them something of our own selves, which 
died and can return no more. 

Since we have had these conversations with 
Father Hofer, I have the impression that the 
China which I knew is gone for ever. Till 
now I had always thought that I need only 
turn back and that I should find there every- 
thing just as I left it — but it is not so, we 
never find again everything, because nothing 
remains immovable, not even in China. Now 
the fear haunts me of what will happen if 
Hofer really is right with his predictions. 

If only he succeeds in Europe and his 
warnings come yet in time ! And then again 
I ask myself, Has it ever been possible to 
stave off events and to direct and rule fate? 
Human beings toil, care, and sorrow; they 
K 


146 


THE LETTERS 


would help and improve the world, but in all 
that they fancy to be doing for the benefit or 
detriment of others, in all actions on which 
they imagine to decide of their own free will, 
which they count as merits or omissions — in 
all that they are perhaps only the blind tools 
of a blind destiny. Who can know? 

LETTER XXVI 

New York, March 1900. 

Dear Friend, — What funny little traits one 
meets in all people! Like a crusader, Hofer 
has set out from his remote diocese. In a 
miserable house-boat on the Grand Canal, in 
a rattling cart over impassable roads, he has 
first travelled to Peking to warn there of the 
coming disaster, and when he found that 
nobody would listen to him, he started off 
towards America and Europe, there to raise 
his voice once more. Self-interested motives 
or personal fear have nothing to do with all 
this — he only wants to ward off a great danger 
from many innocents, to prevent the small 
cutting of western civilisation, which was 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 147 

planted with so much difficulty in the Far 
East, from being destroyed in a great catas- 
trophe — at all costs he wants to save ‘the deaf 
and blind of Peking. 5 

But the sublime has many lesser next-door 
neighbours, and the occupation with the 
Church evidently does not blunt the wit for 
what is practical. Hofer’s principle is that one 
should always reap small advantages, even on 
the road to the highest ends. During his rest- 
ing days at New York he went to see Charles 
W. O’Doyle, who so far was quite a stranger 
to him, but on the strength of the Chinese 
origin of the latter’s millions, the Father has 
asked him for a contribution towards the 
mission fund, having probably heard that 
this great man looks upon his Catholicism as 
a luxury, for which he is willing to pay a 
good deal. He and more so the Princess of 
Armenfelde wear this religion like a jewel, like 
the symbol of social distinction, and amongst 
their own countrymen they owe to it many 
acquaintances in higher circles which they 
would otherwise never have made. For in 
the United States, le Catholicisme est tres-bien 


148 


THE LETTERS 


port^ y as Madame Baltykoff said the other 
day. 

But the funniest consequence of Father 
Hofer’s appeal to O’Doyle’s charity, and of 
the latter’s fine sense for sensational con- 
spicuousness in business, is, that it has brought 
me an order for pictures ! 

O’Doyle and his daughter have just been 
with me. He told me about Hofer’s call, and 
gave me to understand that the cheque which 
he had handed him for the mission was worth 
Hofer’s whole journey. Then he went on to 
say that he believed the Father to be right 
with all his evil prophecies, as they were 
entirely corroborated by the predictions of his 
agents in Hong-Kong. 

‘ This summer the whole world’s interest will 
be riveted on China,’ O’Doyle said. ‘ I am rarely 
wrong when I make such assertions. If you’ve 
got money invested in China, listen to me and 
sell, for you ’ll be able to buy cheap later on — 
the whole secret of business success rests in 
these few words : buy low, sell high. It has al- 
ways puzzled me that there still remain people 
who will persist in doing just the opposite.’ 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 149 

After I had assured him that I had no 
money in China nor anywhere else, he went 
on : ‘We’re going this summer to my cottage 
at Newport. I ’m building a pagoda there 
for afternoon-tea. I ’ve chosen the Chinese 
style, curved-up roofs, bright tiles, many 
dragons, plenty of little jingling bells; I’ve 
decided on that, because, as I said before, 
this year nothing but China will be talked 
about. Give me Charlie O’Doyle for knowing 
a thing or two ahead of others ! My tea 
pagoda will be the success of the season. But 
I need Chinese views for the inner wall 
decoration : will you paint them ? ’ 

I gladly accepted this proposal, and father 
and daughter looked over my sketches — many 
of which I painted under your eyes. The 
Princess’s taste runs in the picturesque melan- 
choly line; a sunset on the Yangtse, old 
tumble-down walls in Hangtshou pleased her, 
but old O’Doyle rejected all that. ‘ I want 
nothing but pictures of Peking,’ he said, ‘for 
in Peking lies the greatest danger, so Hofer 
said, and that ’s the place which will be talked 
about.’ 


THE LETTERS 


150 

I don’t believe that pictures ever were 
chosen on stranger principles ! 

Finally he decided on a corner tower of the 
Peking city wall, a view of the Imperial Town 
with the yellow palace roofs and a city gate 
through which Chinese soldiers are passing — 
the latter pleased him particularly, for he said 
that they all looked like robbers, ruffians, and 
highwaymen, so that they would seem very 
typical if disturbances really occurred during 
summer. He hinted at future orders — perhaps 
he wants to wait and see if the further news 
from China are such as to give these pictures 
an interest of actuality. 

It was very funny to watch O’Doyle apply- 
ing his fine business scent to picture subjects, 
but I did feel rather frightened to hear revolts 
and massacres quietly alluded to as events 
which are discounted beforehand, and through 
which shares merely go up and down. But 
the remembrance of the winter of ’98 has 
reassured me. In those days we also heard 
constant talk about the Kangsu troops march- 
ing on Peking, where they expected to make 
up for their arrears of pay by plundering the 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 151 

foreigners’ houses. And a few attacks really 
did occur, but when after some days the 
legations’ guards marched in, not a single 
murmur arose against the handful of armed 
strangers, and their mere presence was 
sufficient to control the great throbbing sea 
of yellow masses ! 

I dare say it will be the same this time ! 

LETTER XXVII 

Berlin, May 1900. 

More than a month has passed without my 
writing to you. During that time I have 
crossed the Atlantic, and I am now standing 
on the same mainland as you — but oh, what 
endless distance lies between us — and you do 
not know yet what has happened during this 
interval. Why have I not written to you for 
so long? I might say that I had not had 
time enough. But that would not be true. I 
have been deterred from it by a vague feeling 
which I can scarce explain myself — a dread, 
a last loyalty called silence. To you I could 
not write platitudes such as during the last 


152 


THE LETTERS 


weeks I have heard so much and used myself. 
For there are occasions when we involuntarily 
seek for protection behind conventionalism, 
which appears as a broad, much-frequented 
road, whose correctness is questioned by 
nobody. By keeping to entirely common- 
place utterances, we are sure at least of show- 
ing only the surface of ourselves, and of 
revealing nothing that belongs to our inner 
life. To reach those true, hidden feelings, one 
must dive into the heart’s depths, and we all 
dread doing that, for we never know what we 
may find there. 

It has all been so very sudden. But, then, 
the end always seems to come suddenly. 

I had first to grope for my own way before 
I could write to you. 

He of whom we never spoke is dead. 

We received a telegram in New York, 
telling us that he whose name I bear had been 
taken dangerously ill. A great fire had nearly 
destroyed the asylum in which he was con- 
fined for several years. He had been saved, 
but in consequence of the nervous shock, brain 
fever had set in. My brother cabled to his 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 153 

firm for leave of absence, and with the first 
boat we left New York. When we arrived all 
was over. We only found a fresh grave. I 
dreaded that moment, not knowing what 
unexpected thoughts and feelings it might 
bring, for in the routine of daily life, with its 
small occurrences, we fancy to know ourselves, 
but face to face with unforeseen events, we 
always are surprises to ourselves. As we 
were walking towards the grave, I caught 
hold of my brother’s arm, seeking protection 
from the unknown, but gradually the nervous 
strain relaxed — nothing unknown, nothing 
new appeared — nothing seemed changed. 
Then suddenly I became aware that I was 
perfectly calm. 

What were my exact sensations ? 

His life has been so terrible for many years 
that, by comparison, his death could scarce 
seem so to anybody. And perhaps, if we 
only knew, for others also who have not, like 
him, overstepped the boundary which we call 
reason, life is the real misery, not death. We 
only have been taught, since generations, to 
put such wrong values on both. For how 


54 


THE LETTERS 


could people be governed, how could people 
be led to God qui feraient franchement fi de 
la vie ? God? He is supposed to have also 
given this one special life, and He probably 
deemed it as valuable as the sparrow’s, which 
He allows not to fall from the roof. And yet 
this life went to wreck and ruin, and the spirit 
was hopelessly lost in benighted darkness. 
Like a chain with a leaden weight, this one 
existence fastened itself to another one, para- 
lysing and dragging it down. That other being 
had been endowed with the faculty of feeling 
to the utmost the pain and degradation of 
such a burden ; hopes, aspirations, yearnings 
had been given it, but none of all the possi- 
bilities held out ever was fulfilled. And now, 
after the one life, like a blunted, unconscious 
mass, had spent years in drowsy, heavy brood- 
ing, and after the other life had toiled through 
all that weary time, with the horrible know- 
ledge of being wasted and useless — now a 
brutal catastrophe has brought the clumsy 
end. Nothing is explained, and there is 
nothing that reconciles. We stand before the 
senseless facts. Why had all that to be? 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 155 

Providence? No. That idea to me explains 
nothing. The conception of an almighty 
power, which creates and governs worlds, and 
which yet allows a few simple human destinies 
to get so hopelessly entangled, that concep- 
tion is full of such cruelty and arbitrariness, 
that one is not consoled, but only tempted to 
call it to account. 

During the last years I have always tried to 
keep down such thoughts and to overcome 
bitterness. But how hard it often was ! Par- 
ticularly when spring-time came, spring for 
others who thought it quite natural to be 
happy — then it was bitter indeed to be quite 
lonely, like an accidentally existing being for 
whom no place has been foreseen when the 
world was wisely planned. For we easily 
accept the great prodigality with which every 
second Nature wastes millions, which all 
carried the possibilities of existence, and 
which yet, without having lived, had to sink 
back into the grey unknown, from which 
they longingly had risen ; and there is 
nothing of which our wisdom is more easily 
convinced than the irrevocableness of the 


156 


THE LETTERS 


sufferings of others. But when it is our- 
selves that such destiny strikes, when the 
irrevocableness seizes us, crushing all that 
wanted to be, when every day begins with 
new hope, yet never brings ought but decep- 
tion and the same weary evening — then only 
do we realise the enormousness of the world’s 
suffering, because it is our suffering. Oh, the 
confident hope of young years, which gradu- 
ally turns into sceptical waiting ! When first 
we meet unhappiness and injustice, we think 
it is only a passing error — something like an 
arithmetical mistake which will be quickly put 
right again. We deem everything that forms 
part of us so important and so worthy of 
development, that it appears an unbearable 
thought to see any of those precious gifts 
wither away unused. 

Dustlike, infinite small seeds blown into 
endless space by the wind, that asks neither 
why nor where — yes, for them reckless waste- 
fulness is the world’s law. But for us ? Oh no! 

But experiences daily augment a long chain 
of evidence, and looking back we discover how 
much died in us ere it was allowed to live, 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 157 

talents, and ambitions, and yearning to love — 
all things given us in vain, and doomed before- 
hand — for many are called, but few are chosen. 
At first we fight against it, but gradually the 
conviction grows that we also belong to the 
wasted ones, to the millions whose appearing 
was entirely useless. Overproduction. Foam 
that flows over the goblet’s rim. 

He who has thus once valued his own life 
shivers to the marrow of his bones. Why go 
on any further? Instead of all that we once 
eagerly wanted, nothing remains but the one 
great longing to sink down wearily like the 
dead leaves, to be hidden under a snow-white 
cover, and there to dissolve into the damp, 
brown earth, to become nourishment for the 
ever-wasteful earth — for that, at least, we 
might perhaps serve. 

How often have such thoughts come to me 
during the last years, and have I striven to 
attain calm and quiet. For to turn bitterness 
and indignation into tender pity and sadness 
is life’s task, which we must complete would 
we not end in despair. 

And now I have been standing before a 


i 5 8 


THE LETTERS 


grave. A poor, wasted being rests there. He 
did not mean to harm me — once he even 
loved me in his own way, for so many things 
go by that name. No, he did not mean to 
harm me — he has only destroyed my whole 
life — he was forced to live just long enough 
for that — in everything else he too was merely 
a poor, wasted life. And nobody can answer: 
Why had he to be, and being, why had he to 
suffer so much, and to inflict so much suffering 
on others? He also has once surely felt the 
great indignation and bitterness, when he first 
became aware of the approaching doom, when 
he no lunger could as he would, when he 
struggled and felt compelled to commit strange 
actions, whose motives he afterwards no longer 
remembered. He too had surely rebelled and 
fought against the incomprehensible and 
stronger power ; and yet he also had to sub- 
mit at last to destiny, for destiny always is 
stronger than our small intelligence and will 
— even when destiny is called madness. 

‘ The terrible attacks of raving/ the keeper 
told us, ‘had gradually subsided during the 
last part of his life, before the fire occurred ; 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 159 

it seemed as if he gradually sank into utter 
apathy. We often see that happening to our 
patients ; they finally become quite easy to 
deal with.’ 

And I thought, yes, at first revolt, then 
blunted, weary apathy, that is indeed human 
destiny. Some find it here in a narrow 
asylum cell, others out there in the world’s 
wide madhouse. 

* Thank God, his sufferings are ended now, 
and the poor gentleman is at rest,’ said the 
keeper. 

I looked at him in astonishment. Year 
after year that man saw such destinies before 
him, and he could still praise God ! 

But perhaps he was right in a way. For if 
suffering truly is evil, let us hope that death 
may indeed mean end and deliverance. 

I grew calmer and calmer. I was so abso- 
lutely quiet that it astonished me. And yet 
it could scarce have been otherwise. My 
life’s despair, with its wild charges against 
fate, lie far back in dead and gone years. 
When nobody yet guessed it, and all con- 
sidered me a happy woman, but when I 


160 THE LETTERS 

already saw the inexplicable horror before me, 
and tried to shield as long as I could that 
miserable life with its wretched secret from 
the gaze and knowledge of others — that was 
my hardest time of suffering. Then I re- 
belled. And a little later on, when the in- 
evitable discovery and catastrophe had come, 
when all seemed crushed — how hard was the 
feeling then of utter uselessness, how unbearable 
the misery of my young life, which seemed 
to lie before me so endlessly long. Now 
all that is overcome. Since a long time 
the wish of a great silence has fallen on me. 
I am like one of those deserted houses in 
which all have died, and which resignation 
chooses for her abode. This grave changes 
nothing. I stood before it without mourn- 
ing. But thanks be to destiny that from that 
grave no accusation can arise against me ; 
thanks also be to destiny that in my own 
heart bitterness since long speaks no more. 

Sorrow and pity alone have remained. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 161 


LETTER XXVIII 

Berlin, May 1900. 

My brother’s time in Europe will soon be up. 
In a week he must go back to New York. 
Just now he has gone for a few days to see 
his chiefs. I am waiting for him here, and 
we shall sail together. I accompany him 
again, of course, for he and I belong to one 
another since so many years that I could not 
imagine any other life. You, dear friend, 
will understand this, although here, of course, 
many friends advise me to remain in Berlin 
and make my home here — as if that were so 
easy, and required nothing more than to rent 
an apartment and to hire servants. Some one 
drawled the other day: ‘’Twould be just 
what’s missing in Berlin, house of indepen- 
dent woman, intellectual milieu , neutral 
ground — might even attain political import- 
ance.’ 

What a lonely little home that would be ! 
And the intellectual milieu , how utterly it 
does fail to attract me ! For whom ? Yes, for 
whom? It is absolutely indifferent to me if 
L 


162 


THE LETTERS 


at my funeral some ‘politically important’ 
men say : ‘ Again one pleasant house less ; 
what excellent dinners that woman gave,’ and 
then look at their watch to go and dine 
elsewhere. 

Oh yes, if I were young, and still possessed 
the buoyancy which the belief in the im- 
portance of things always bestows on us. 
But I am weary — nothing but every day a 
little more weary. 

And social ambitions? Alas, what for? 

If my brother were not with me, I should 
be quite lost, for I feel so strange in Berlin 
— stranger almost than in America or China ! 

I had always clung to the belief that 
when I once returned to Germany, it could 
not be otherwise than that a delicious home- 
feeling would at once enwrap me. And now 
it is all so different from what in the distance 
I thought it would be ! Everything in life 
always is different from what we expected — 
but scarce ever any better. 

Since I am back in Germany I am con- 
stantly waiting for the awakening of my home- 
feeling ; but it still slumbers. I had hoped 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 163 

much from the sight of the Brandenburger 
Thor. But in vain. That the avenue with 
the statues of the Electors and other great 
men did not rouse it, is not strange, for that 
was entirely new to me, and has only con- 
vinced me once more that a right instinct 
led me when, as a child, I fought against lessons 
of history, for the opinions and final judg- 
ments of history are evidently not at all 
settled as yet. 

Here, in the Buckingham Hotel, Unter den 
Linden, where we live because Americans 
recommended it to my brother, I shall also 
scarcely attain the feeling of home, sweet 
home. 

My continual searching for a home-feeling 
is half-touching, half-comical, and it reminds 
me of Loti searching for his lost faith in the 
Holy Land, But never fear, dear friend, I am 
not going to write a whole book about it, like 
Loti, for I have come much quicker than he 
to an explanation of the uselessness of our 
search. I am afraid we have both stayed 
away too long, he from the sanctuaries ot 
faith and I from the scenes of youth — for 


164 


THE LETTERS 


faith and for home there is perhaps also such 
a thing as a ‘too late.’ If we have once 
become utterly estranged from them, we do 
not understand them any more, and can 
never find our way back. 

But the longing for my former home is so 
strong in me that I will at least freshen up 
its memories to carry them with me, when I 
once more set sail outward bound. Here in 
Berlin everything has grown so new, strange, 
and big, that I look in vain for traces of my 
own small past. I will look for old tracks 
out of town in the country, and to-morrow 
morning I intend going to the estate which 
once was the home of my mother’s parents, 
and in which I lived, as an orphan, with rela- 
tions, until the unexpected whim of fortune 
occurred which brought a rich husband to 
me, a penniless girl. 

As a poor relative kept out of kindness, I 
have spent there many a bitter hour, and I 
have envied my brother, whom I seldom saw 
in those days, but of whom I knew that he 
was preparing for a useful, independent pro- 
fession. How I wished to do the same ! But 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 165 

my relations considered it their duty to bring 
me up like their own daughters, that is, we were 
taught modern languages, fancy work, a little 
drawing and painting, and when visitors came, 
we were expected to see that flowers were 
put into their rooms. It was highly un- 
practical, but perfectly standesgemass. I 
envied the Mamsell on the estate who 
honestly earned her bread, and I tried to 
learn from her. But my relations only laughed 
at this and said that I was sure to make a 
good match some day. Well, they were right 
in their way; but afterwards I envied the 
Mamsell even more. 

But notwithstanding all bitter hours, Garzin 
has always remained in my memory the one 
spot on earth to which I have a right — the 
right which we gain through loving. In my 
thoughts I have always called it home, al- 
though my relations to whom it then belonged 
are long dead. Through unintelligible feudal 
laws it has passed into the hands of an utter 
stranger, an old man who never goes there, 
and who drags his small remnant of a sickly 
life from one watering-place to another. 


THE LETTERS 


1 66 

So to Garzin ! will go early to-morrow 
morning, and at the thought of seeing it again 
my heart beats, and I fancy one must feel like 
this when going to a rendezvous. And truly 
it is a rendezvous — with the past ! 

I keep going to the window, from which 
one sees the narrow hotel-yard transformed 
into a miniature garden, and I look up along 
the high walls to the stripe of sky above me, 
and every grey cloud that glides past frightens 
me, for I should not like to see my dear old 
Garzin in rainy weather, but in its lightest, 
sun -spotted, spring garment. That always 
suited it best ! 


LETTER XXIX 

Berlin, May 1900. 

I HAVE seen it in sunshine ! 

Quite early I left the Friedrichstrasse 
station. At first the elevated train wends its 
way above the ugly tangle of streets, past 
high houses into whose backyards one looks 
as if to spy into all their secrets. Dust, soot, 
a bewildering net of rails on which the early 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 167 

suburban trains seem to be running a race. 
At every station the same throng of pale, 
restless town-dwellers’ faces, all of them people 
who must rush somewhere to do some work, 
all of them tiny wheels in one huge machine. 
Everything grey and joyless, and all, oh! so 
weary and worn even in the early morning. 

At last we are out in the open flat land, 
where spring bursts upon us like a surprise. 
Pale green cornfields, vegetable gardens, 
fenced-in nurseries of small trees. ‘ Behfelde,’ 
‘ Straussberg/ and other well-known station 
names strike my ear. Soon after that we 
enter a forest of high fir-trees with juniper 
bushes between them. In the woods, night’s 
veils still seem to hang, bits of bluish fog 
float about ; the smoke of the engine mixes 
with it, and crawls between the first rows of 
high, reddish stems, till it is lost in the dark 
depths of the forest. 

Then the train again rushes out of the 
woods, and on the right the peatland extends, 
already the beginning of the Garzin district. 
Near each black, square-shaped waterpool, the 
cut peat is heaped up in regular pyramids. 


i68 


THE LETTERS 


A bluish haze lies over the marsh, white 
birch -trunks glisten through it, and pale 
green, heart-shaped birch leaves tremble in 
the morning air ; further back, everything 
vanishes in the early mist. 

Now the train stops. I alight. This is the 
station from which an hour’s drive takes you 
to Garzin. As I am still standing undecided 
on the little platform, a porter passes by, 
conducting a Berlin family, which also has 
got out here, and I hear him saying : ‘ Here, 
over the bridge is the way to the Garzin 
branch-line.’ 

A branch-line to Garzin ? Innovations here 
also? 

I follow the family from Berlin and the 
porter, who is carrying a bicycle and many 
bags. We cross the high bridge under which 
the train that brought us is just passing, 
rushing onward towards the east, and we get 
into the narrow gauge, toy-like train. 

‘ Kein Gepack , Madamken ? * (No luggage, 
little ma’am ?) asks the porter. 

Softly I answer, ‘No,’ and I draw the thick 
black veil more tightly around me, for I have 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 169 

surely seen that man formerly, and I suddenly 
feel so afraid, as if I were doing something 
very wrong and could be found out. 

The family from Berlin consists of father 
and mother, both fat and well-to-do looking 
people, who take everything for granted, who 
look at life in a matter-of-fact way, and never 
puzzle about anything, who abhor socialists 
and vote for Richter. Then there is a grown- 
up daughter, evidently eine hohere Tochter , 
who may even have passed her teacher’s 
examination, and a small, sickly daughter, 
with an oldish, embittered child’s face. The 
party is completed by a cousin, a young man, 
on whose pale, pimply face the short, fair hair 
of a budding beard looks like scanty corn- 
stalks on a meagre soil. He wears a bicycling 
costume in which his thin legs and long, flat 
feet are particularly obtrusive. His grey 
flannel shirt is laced in front with red silk 
cord. He carries a white Tyrolean felt-hat, 
adorned with woodcocks’ feathers, and on his 
nose eyeglasses are firmly planted. These 
five people talk in loud voices about their 
affairs, as if they were quite alone, so that I 


THE LETTERS 


170 

cannot help hearing that they are going on 
account of Rickes health for a few days to 
Garzin, and that the Hohenzollern Hotel near 
the Town Lake has been recommended to 
them by friends who stayed there last summer. 

My old Garzin a health-resort! And a 
Hohenzollern Hotel ! 

In twenty minutes the toy-like train carries 
us through pine-woods, deep sand, and low, 
damp meadows, and then we arrive at the 
entrance of the little town of Garzin, where 
we alight. The Berlin family, conducted 
by the porter, walks deliberately through the 
main street towards the Town Lake. 

I follow slowly. The pavement has re- 
mained as rough as it ever was, and consists 
of stones of all shapes and sizes pressed into 
the ground. I recognise the small, one-storied 
houses, at whose doors high stemmed rose- 
trees lift up their branches, just now covered 
with tender, young, brownish leaves. One of 
the first houses still carries the signboard 
on which a coffin is painted, and next to it 
stands the little, old-fashioned inn, over whose 
gate the words are written : ‘ Der alte Brauch 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 171 

wird nicht gebrochen , hier konncn Familien 
Kaffee kochen ’ (The old custom will not 
be discarded, families are here allowed to 
cook their coffee.) 

But next to the old and well known, how 
much that is unfamiliar ! A whole row of 
new houses, real suburban villas, pretentious 
and in bad taste. And truly a regular hotel, 
separated from the street by wire railing, 
and standing in the midst of a garden full 
of young, miserable-looking plants. Behind 
it I see the Town Lake. I remember it as 
a dreamy, quiet sheet of silvery water, sur- 
rounded by a wilderness of bulrushes and 
reeds, a home of wild duck and crested 
grebe. Now people row across it in brightly 
painted gondolas, and on the other bank a 
large, square building has been erected, on 
whose roof the word ‘ Sanatorium * stands out 
against the sky in big, gilt letters. 

I hurried on and got to the market-place. 
There everything has remained unchanged: 
the small shop of the Widow Wronkow, where, 
as children, we spent many pennies on buttons, 
bright cottons, little knives, and such treasures ; 


172 


THE LETTERS 


the corner store of Riickheim, where the nota- 
bilities of the town met of an evening over a 
glass of beer ; the pastor’s house with the two 
old linden-trees, standing on both sides of the 
doorsteps. Formerly pastor-children of all 
ages used to play in the sand under these 
linden-trees, and in this respect at least the 
present is quite like the past : a whole row 
of small children dig in the sand, and the 
Frau Pastorin of to-day watches them from 
the window with the new-born baby in her 
arms. 

In the market-place stands the little monu- 
ment erected after the war of 1870, an eagle 
sitting with outspread wings on a block of 
granite. Behind it, steps lead up to the 
church. 

And I suddenly felt there a great longing 
to enter this church in which I have taken 
so many resolutions, and where I prayed to 
God to set me great, heroic tasks, which 
did not hinder that I straight away stumbled 
over my little daily duties. I wanted so much 
to see once more the altar with the twisted 
columns and the fat, carved wooden angels, 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 173 


the wreaths which are hung up there from 
one harvest-feast to the other, and the black 
commemorative tablets on which the names 
are inscribed of the men from Garzin who 
were killed during the wars of ’64, ’ 66 , and ’70. 

But the church was locked, as it is proper 
and correct for a Protestant church to be, 
for Protestantism brings up quiet, punctual 
people, and it disapproves of sudden yearnings 
and emotional aspirations. The Protestants 
are expected to go to God as to a notary or 
a doctor, in the regular consultation hours, 
which are advertised in the local paper. On 
Sunday mornings at ten o’clock, the God of 
the Protestants is at home. 

The Garzin church has been endowed with 
a new spire, and the old birches seem to 
have grown higher yet; their thin branches, 
which look like knotted threads, sway softly 
in the wind, knocking against the high church 
windows that glisten in the sun. The small 
churchyard of former generations, in the 
middle of which the church stands, looks 
quite as of old, a tangled mass of ivy, grasses, 
and wildflowers creeping over the old, weather- 


*74 


THE LETTERS 


worn tombstones. I looked for an old tablet 
about which I often used to wonder as a girl, 
and it really is still there, and I read the quaint 
old verses chiselled into the moss-eaten stone, 
and which snow and rain have almost effaced : 

‘ Here lies the Wusterdorf Johann. 

He was a weary, wandering man, 

And wore the chains of sin’s hard ban. 

Lord God ! judge mildly Thou this man, 

For by his wish he ne’er began 

The toilsome road through life’s short span.’ 

In those former days these words seemed so 
mysterious that I invented long stories about 
the Wusterdorf Johann’s misdeeds ; but now 
I think the inscription might serve as epitaph 
for any one of us. 

I stood a long while up there amongst the 
old tombstones, watching the birds busily 
carrying stalks and mosses in their little 
beaks, for by the transmitted experience of 
many generations, they have learnt that one 
may well build nests under the wing of the 
church. 

Then I went on towards the Schloss of 
Garzin. 

And there it stood before me. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 175 

Quite unchanged, just as so many years 
ago, only a little more abandoned, untended, 
and uncared for. I stood still. Tears gathered 
in my eyes. Out of the depth of my loneli- 
ness a cry seemed to rise towards the old 
house: ‘Love me, do love me a little!’ as if 
it were a human being, and I fancied I could 
hear it answering : ‘ At last, at last, thou hast 
come home again.’ 

There is the big green grass-plot with the 
four lilac bushes full of flowers, the old sun- 
dial, the drive leading up to the house and 
the house itself, a big two-storied building, 
whose perfectly plain front has been decorated 
in the times of Schinkel with Grecian orna- 
ments that look as if they were astonished 
at themselves in these surroundings of northern 
nature, just as they used to be! On both 
sides of the house the old linden-trees stand 
whose branches trail on the ground, and one 
wall is covered with knotty, intertwined ivy 
in which numberless sparrows chirp. 

Yes, this once was home! 

I stood still and gazed, past and present 
dissolving into one sole feeling of intense 


176 


THE LETTERS 


sadness which seemed to well up from some 
great depth and to fill the whole world. 

‘Wouldn’t you also like to see the Schloss ?’ 
the voice of the young man in the bicycling 
costume suddenly asks me in the midst of my 
dreams, and I become aware of the presence 
of the whole Berlin family being led by a little 
servant-girl who carries a bunch of keys. 

‘ But do they show it ? ’ 

‘ I should think so/ answers the sportive 
youth. ‘ For a tip to the inspector’s servant- 
girl any one can have a look for once at 
such a home of the poverty-stricken land- 
owners.’ 

In my astonishment at hearing Garzin 
spoken of as a show-place for tourists, I 
follow without thinking. But standing in 
the old familiar rooms amongst these strange 
people, myself a stranger like them, I felt 
that I ought not to have come. The jokes 
of the Berliners hurt me as if I saw some 
one dear and dead, roughly handled. On no 
account would I be recognised, and yet I 
cannot understand how it is possible that I 
can remain there so unnoticed that not all 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 177 

the lifeless things even nod and whisper: ‘Be 
greeted, be welcomed back amongst us.’ 

From the wide, empty hall we entered the 
drawing-room. How uninhabited, cheerless, 
and bare it felt coming from the sunshine 
outside. A few pieces of the old furniture 
still stand there ; they have grown very 
shabby, and look like poor, sick people whose 
diseases and sores are stared at by inquisi- 
tive students of medicine ; I recognised the 
striped, threadbare carpet, and even a well- 
known hole mended so many years ago.’ 

‘ I say, Karl,’ says the fat woman from 
Berlin to her husband as she touches a sola- 
cover, ‘we’re more swell than this in the 
Kopnicker Strasse .’ 

And the fat Karl answers : ‘ Ton my word, 
in these baronial halls one might yet end by 
pitying the East Elbians .’ 

The great yellow ballroom is the only 
thing that impresses the woman from Berlin. 
Pointing to the many white stucco heads 
dating from the Schinkel epoch, she asks : 
‘ I say, Karl, are those the ancestors of the 
proprietors ? ’ 


M 


78 


THE LETTERS 


‘Gottedoch, Mama * answers the elder daughter 
reprovingly, ‘can’t you see that those are all 
Grecian gods and goddesses ? ’ 

We enter another empty room. 

‘ This was the bedroom of the gracious little 
Comtessen / says the young peasant girl who 
is showing us over the house. 

Yes, she has been rightly informed — that 
was the bedroom of the gracious little 
Comtessen . How well I remember the small 
white beds — now it has been quite emptied. 
On the faded red wallpaper some brighter 
coloured spots mark the places where pictures 
used to hang. On one wall one single old 
painting has been left. It represents a saint 
sitting quite nude in a rocky landscape ; he 
holds a piece of paper on which he is busily 
writing. 

‘ That old chap up there is evidently writing 
to Wertheimer’s to order a shirt/ says the 
sportive youth, and although I feel near crying, 
I must laugh, for we used to make exactly 
the same remark when the poor saint was the 
target of our youthful wit. 

On going out of this room I stopped a 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 179 


moment near the door. Yes, really, there 
they were, the faint pencil strokes which my 
uncle used to make over our heads when he 
took our measure and marked on this door 
how much we had grown during the year. 
Where are the little girls that used to stand 
there before the uncle, and to whom he called 
out, ‘Children, don’t stand on tiptoe! don’t 
cheat ! * ? They were so eager to grow : now 
they have long outgrown the old house. 

Passed ! All gone and passed ! 

I lingered long in the park, where empty 
bottles and greasy sandwich papers have been 
thrown amongst the bushes by Berlin excur- 
sionists, where the weeds grow in the paths 
and flower-beds, where the reeds advance ever 
further into the little lake, and where, notwith- 
standing all the neglect and decay, it is yet 
so full of spring’s beauty, as in former months 
of May ! 

I only returned to town by the last train. 
I tarried as long as possible, for I felt that 
I was seeing it all for the last time. It was 
late when I once more was at the Friedrich- 
strasse station. I walked from there to the 


i8o THE LETTERS 

Buckingham Hotel. On such an evening 
stroll one brushes past much ugliness and 
misery. I pressed my face into the bunch 
of lilac that I had brought back from Garzin, 
and in the midst of the rushing and buzzing 
noise of the street it seemed to me as if I 
heard quite faintly the quaint old words 
which might serve as epitaph for all of us : — 

‘ Lord God ! judge mildly Thou this man, 

For by his will he ne’er began 

The toilsome road through life’s short span.’ 


LETTER XXX 

Berlin, May 1900. 

I AM employing these last days in knocking 
at the doors of a few old friends, and yesterday 
I went to see a distant relation of my mother’s 
whom I call Uncle. I believe you would like 
him, and so I will tell you about him. 

According to outward human classification 
he belongs to the German professors, but in 
reality I fancy he is a being of some classical 
period, perhaps the reincarnation of an ancient 
Greek sage who used to dwell in a tub and to 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 181 


look on at the transitory phases of things ; or 
he may perhaps have been formerly the abbot 
of a celebrated cloister of the Italian Renais- 
sance ; but no Savonarola, who declaimed 
against the perversity of mankind and wanted 
to regenerate the world, rather a monk of the 
contemplative kind, who consigned his observa- 
tion to old chronicles, illuminating them with 
minutely painted letters, and who did not feel 
called upon to act as reformer, thinking that 
he who keeps his own heart pure has done his 
share. 

Uncle lives near the Thiergarten, in a street 
which widens out into a small square where a 
church stands surrounded by lilac bushes. It 
is not an old part of Berlin, but neither is it 
aggressively new, and there is something sooth- 
ing about this silent street. Looking at those 
serious, somewhat uniform houses, you involun- 
tarily fancy that their inhabitants must be 
quietly working men, who write and read a 
lifetime in the same rooms, and who ignore 
the hurry of frequent changes of abode. It 
is a quarter of savants. 

As long as I can remember, Uncle lives in 


182 


THE LETTERS 


the same house on the third floor. His study 
is a large back room, from whose balcony one 
looks on gardens which just now are one mass 
of delicate spring foliage. Above his writing- 
table a marble relief is put up against the wall. 
It represents Uncle’s wife who died long ago, 
and the noble profile bears a great likeness to 
Byron or Achim von Arnim. It is a human 
type which one meets seldom nowadays, and 
which seems to have been more frequent 
formerly. It may be that human types dis- 
appear with the ideals of their epoch. Who 
would fight to-day like Byron for the inde- 
pendence of Greece? If one may rely on the 
lines of a face, my dead aunt must have been 
a true gentlewoman at heart, who would have 
scorned to derive advantage from the misery 
of others. 

During the years I have spent abroad Uncle 
has grown an old man. His long hair has 
turned white, and he is so thin, as if earthly 
matter which we require for living had already 
fallen from him. Looking at him I remem- 
bered the words ‘ ein verkldrter Leib .’ His 
beautiful clear eyes have remained the same ; 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 183 

they only have grown larger, and it seems as 
if they overlooked much that obtrudes upon 
our view, and as if they distinguished things 
that are still hidden to us. 

Harmony and calmness surround him. 

He lives in his own special world, avoiding 
all that might tend to distract him from it, as 
if he were afraid not to finish some great task. 
He spoke at once of his life-work, Florence in 
the Time of the Renaissance , over which he was 
busy years ago when I first left Germany to 
wander abroad, and which just now appears in a 
beautifully illustrated edition. He showed me 
some proof-sheets. How small and useless do 
most lives appear with their hurried, varying 
objects that leave no trace, when compared to 
such a life which is entirely dominated by one 
great, lasting interest. 

In Uncle’s house I met another guest. A 
small, hunchbacked, narrow-chested man, with 
a clever, sharp-cut face, penetrating eyes, and 
a bitter smile playing round his finely curved 
lips. Hanz-Buckau is an old acquaintance of 
mine. In a high, grey, old building near the 
Spree he has been librarian for many years, and 


THE LETTERS 


184 

in the leisure hours which this occupation and 
his frequent sickness leave him, he translates 
classical Italian poems, and he composes 
sonnets of satirical tendencies. In the even- 
ings a very select society assembles in Hanz- 
Buckau’s rooms, for he is one of the few people 
in Berlin who has succeeded in having a real 
‘ salon.’ The people who come to him always 
appear cleverer there than in their own houses. 
It seems as if he knew how to call forth their 
hidden wit, or maybe he loans them of his 
own. Hanz-Buckau has an unbounded admira- 
tion for beautiful women, and they must divine 
the secret altar which this poor misshapen 
man raises for them in his heart, for I know 
not of one who did not grow fond of him. 
Poor Hanz-Buckau, who feels beauty so in- 
tensely, and who therefore suffers so particu- 
larly under his own appearance, leads in 
his way a perpetual fight between the body 
and the spirit. He has always reminded me 
of Leopardi, of that great Italian who carried 
in his heart an eternally unsatisfied longing, 
who mourned for the Past and had never 
possessed a Present. Hanz-Buckau is such 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 185 

a Leopardi nature with a good deal of Berlin 
salt added to it. He is devoted to Uncle, and 
has well defined his calm and self-possessed 
distinction by giving him the nickname, 
‘Professor Serene Highness.’ 

Uncle’s inner harmony and the way he has 
of toning down all that is excessive are sooth- 
ing to the passionate Hanz-Buckau. He looks 
at all things very critically, takes nothing for 
granted, and delights in mocking at the herd- 
nature of mankind, and the easiness with which 
it accepts idols, that always prove to be tinsel 
ones. To-day Hanz-Buckau spoke much about 
this, for he finds it hard to have to take the 
world as it is, and he is indignant at seeing 
everywhere such a wrong valuation of things 
and people. 

‘ One declaims and preaches enough against 
physical laziness,’ he said ; ‘ but intellectual 
apathy is rather encouraged. One half of 
mankind is to remain in it altogether, and of 
the other half as many members as possible. 
By this systematic encouragement of de- 
pendency all the false greatness is alone 
possible.’ 


THE LETTERS 


1 86 

And later on he said : ‘ We, the so-called 
nation of thinkers, really dread nothing 
more than having to think for ourselves, 
particularly about those things which con- 
cern us practically. Therefore one is always 
astonished abroad when public opinion in 
Germany for once clearly shows itself ; usually 
it sleeps in the happy conviction that ministers, 
privy councillors, and professors, who all are 
supposed to be endowed with some of the 
“By the grace of God” prestige, are watching 
and on the look-out. We always rely on 
possessing in an emergency the necessary 
great men, as if we had rented them once for 
all, and we refuse to perceive that in that 
article we are often sadly imposed upon. We 
are incorrigible hero-worshippers, and we know 
how to make shift with very little. When 
times are hard heroes grow smaller, just like 
the loaves when corn is dear.’ 

Uncle answered: ‘That which seems char- 
acteristic to you, dear Hanz-Buckau, of the 
land and epoch in which chance let you be 
born, has in reality existed everywhere and 
always, for all times have always been 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 187 


convinced of being rich in great men. But 
the final judgment of history often pronounces 
that place to be but an empty desert where 
the contemporaries saw a throng. In imme- 
diate vicinity everything looks large, but 
when objects begin to recede into a certain 
distance which allows comparison and the 
application of a general standard measure, 
then only the true and lasting importance of 
things shows itself. The true giants, and they 
alone are of consequence, always make their 
way finally, and to falsify values entirely is 
only possible for a short time; therefore do 
not grudge the one-day idols their one-day 
adorers.’ 

‘Your uncle,’ said Hanz-Buckau, turning to 
us, ‘ has already overcome the notion of time. 
To him Luther, Frederick the Great, Goethe, 
and Bismarck are present realities, mani- 
festations of one and the same great Germanic 
genius which exist together. He overlooks 
all lesser ones, and the resentment which we 
small ones feel at the temporary false great- 
ness of others, who are in reality just as in- 
significant as ourselves, is quite indifferent 


1 88 


THE LETTERS 


to him. Your uncle values only the master- 
ful geniuses. And I will tell you a secret: 
in this respect your classical uncle is at heart, 
and without knowing it himself, one of the 
most modern of moderns.’ 

Hanz-Buckau said this with the half-ironical 
tenderness which always trembles in his voice 
when he talks of Uncle. It seems as if no- 
body were to know how fond he is of him. 

It was getting late, and talking, those two 
had accompanied me to the landing in front 
of Uncle’s apartment door. A narrow stair- 
case leads up from there to the loft, and from 
high above a golden ray of the afternoon sun 
fell just on Uncle, who was leaning with his 
hand on the railing ; such a transparent fine 
hand, which, during a lifetime, has busily held 
the pen ! I had already taken leave, but a 
thousand memories drew me towards him like 
invisible threads ; I turned back once more and 
bent over those dear old hands and a tear 
fell on them ; for Uncle is one of the very 
last yet left from my childhood’s time ! 

‘My poor child,’ said Uncle, and his voice 
was full of the pity of those who already stand 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 189 

beyond life’s struggle for those others who 
are yet in the very midst of it. Perhaps also 
that Uncle guessed how intensely lonely I felt 
in that moment, for there lay a warning in 
his words to be calm, and to overcome all 
excessive feeling, and, if it cannot be over- 
come, to hide it at least deep in one’s heart. 
Like a figure of Olympian calmness Uncle 
appeared to me, or rather like an old Maha- 
ratta chief, who showed me once in India 
his gold-threaded shawl, saying: ‘It protects 
against sun and cold, against wind and dust, 
and its greatest service will once be to cover 
me in my dying hour, thus hiding my last 
agony.’ Uncle surely possesses such a gold- 
threaded Maharatta shawl, for we only see 
of him what he thinks fit, and that is all 
harmoniously transfigured — ‘ Serene Highness,’ 
as Hanz-Buckau says. 


LETTER XXXI 

Berlin, May 1900. 

Dear Friend, — O f some hotels in Switzer- 
land and Italy, Baedeker mentions in paren- 


190 


THE LETTERS 


thesis that they are much frequented by 
Germans. The experienced traveller avoids 
such hotels. Of the Buckingham, at which 
we are staying here, Baedeker could say, ‘ It 
is much frequented by diplomats, princes, and 
Americans/ 

This hotel is le dernier cri of fashion and 
comfort combined. Only a few little German 
inconveniences have been allowed to pass by 
unobserved. There is a great want of large 
wardrobes, to make up for which your 
drawing-room boasts of shaky Louis xvi. 
brackets with some fragile nicknacks which 
are supposed to look gemiitlich. But all 
in all it pretends to be as American as 
possible. 

‘Why, you are playing at Waldorf Astoria,’ 
I said to the Manager Picus as we arrived. He 
took this as the highest possible compliment, 
murmured something about ‘ pioneer of culture 
in Berlin/ and ever since he has been full 
of condescending attentions to me, almost 
as if I were an ambassador, for nothing does 
Manager Picus love better than an ambassador. 
But also for diplomats of less exalted rank 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 191 


there is a warm place in his heart. They 
appear to him as bearers of many possibilities 
with whom one must make friends betimes. 

In the first dining-hall — the room of the 
Chosen Few — several tables are reserved, at 
which only diplomats sit. When Manager 
Picus escorts some of these gentlemen to their 
places, he looks so solemn and has such a 
‘peace upon earth’ expression, as if he were 
performing some holy rite. 

The other day he ran to meet one of our 
most promising diplomats in the entrance 
hall. Beaming, smiling, and rubbing his hands 
he said : ‘ I congratulate the Herr Graf on his 
nomination to X.’ 

‘Why, my dear Picus,’ answered the other, 
tapping him on the shoulder, ‘how do you 
know that already, it’s scarce out of the 
Foreign Office ? ’ 

And Picus answered, bashful and delighted: 
‘ The Herr Graf will understand, we also have 
our little connections, and gradually one ends 
by belonging oneself, so to say, to the diplo- 
matic circle.’ 

But also otherwise Picus knows always how 


192 


THE LETTERS 




to show proper deference. Just lately, on 
account of a short court mourning, he counter- 
manded for the week the music that usually 
plays during meals. A travelling millionaire 
from Denver, Mrs. Bluffer, gave a dinner- 
party during that time at the Buckingham. 
I heard the lady, who looked very indignant 
at being deprived of something bought by 
good dollars, excitedly asking the solemn- 
looking head-waiter : 

‘ Waiter, why isn’t the band playing? ' 

‘It’s on account of court mourning, ma’am,’ 
and he went on to explain that the Bucking- 
ham being a hotel where so many princes 
and great people stopped, it had naturally to 
consider their feelings. 

Mrs. Bluffer was evidently much impressed, 
and I heard Miss Bluffer whispering to her : 

‘ Oh, mumma darling, ain’t this too delight- 
ful ? Why, it ’s almost as good as if we were 
at court.’ 

My brother has come back yesterday from 
his journey to the coal anc( steel districts. 
As we went down in the evening to dinner we 
saw that the restaurant was remarkably full. 


) 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 193 

‘What’s the matter to-day?’ asked my 
brother ; and Picus answered airily : 

‘The last diplomatic changes all passing 
through my house. Oh, and, by the way, you 
will meet an acquaintance. Mr. Stone Stone- 
head from Peking is here. He has made the 
return journey by Siberia, and is now on his 
way to Rio — a poor advancement, I am afraid 
and Picus shrugged his shoulders at the 
varying chances which are to be found on 
the big^diplomatic see-saw. 

And truly there he was — the great Stone 
Stonehead, self-complacent and pompous as 
ever, not looking in the least as if he had had 
to rough it, but, on the contrary, well-fed and 
fat, an alluring advertisement for the Trans- 
Siberian route. He was sitting between a 
newly appointed ambassador and a prince- 
ling from a house which once reigned over a 
few square miles — knowing him, I daresay, 
he felt happy and elated. 

I remembered how I had seen him last. It 
was at the sea-side in Pei-ta-ho. There he 
wore a bright pink bathing-suit, very wide, so 
that when the water caught in it, he looked 
N 


194 


THE LETTERS 


like a huge pink jelly-fish. A family blessed 
with many thin daughters used always to 
bathe at the same time, and the slim and 
supple little misses swam and played about 
him, looking in their black bathing-suits like 
so many tadpoles to whom a big piece of pink 
meat has been thrown ; but none of them has 
managed to carry off fat Stone Stonehead. 

After the princeling and the ambassador 
had left, he came and sat down at our table, 
as patronising as ever. He talked about his 
journey, and mentioned that, in a place which 
sounded terribly far off, he had met people 
who came from still further away, and had 
seen you somewhere — in one of those regions 
which geographers pretend to know, and 
about which they love to make all kinds of 
assertions, as generally nobody is present who 
could contradict them. 

Such a few poor words of news : Somebody 
has met somebody who has seemyou — and on 
that one must live for a whole while! Like 
the dames of the Middle Ages in their manors, 
to whom a passing minstrel brought news 
many months old of the far-off crusaders ! 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 195 


We naturally asked Stone Stonehead what 
he thought about the disquieting rumours 
which Hofer brought from China, and which, 
during the last days, have been mentioned in 
some of the papers. He answered that the 
missionaries had been spoiled by too much 
protection, and now gave themselves airs, and 
wanted to dabble in the diplomat’s work. 

‘ I never believe missionaries/ he said, 
* except when they read the Bible. As to 
the other news, they have of course been 
spread by the Russians, who are only waiting 
for a pretext to grab Manchuria. I ’ve not 
travelled in vain over all these parts. Agita- 
tion? Uprisings? Why, it is all artificially 
made. I only hope that we’ll keep a cool 
head, and not allow ourselves to be driven 
into adventures.’ 

Oh, I do wish that the great Stone Stone- 
head may be right once in the way! Here 
nobody thinks of any possible danger. 


196 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER XXXII 

Cherbourg, May 1900. 

On Board the ‘ Kaiser Wilhelm der Grossed 

This little letter is the last greeting which I 
can send to you from Europe, for in a few 
minutes we shall sail on from here over the 
Atlantic. These are the last lines which will 
follow the old route to you over Europe, the 
Red Sea, Colombo, and Singapore. This 
small white sheet will travel through lands 
and seas which I know, and I wish it could 
bring to you a little of the deep blue of the 
ocean and the rustling of palm leaves, and a 
glimpse and a breeze of all the many beautiful 
sights which I ever have beheld in the wide 
world, and that it would then whisper softly to 
you that it is I who sent it all, all to you. 

My next letter will be mailed in New York ; 
will journey to you by way of Canada, the 
Pacific, and Japan. From east, from west, 
from all sides, and encircling the globe, my 
thoughts fly to you, dear friend. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 197 


LETTER XXXIII 

May 1900 . 

On Board the ‘ Kaiser Wilhelm der Grossed 

We are already far out on the Atlantic Ocean. 
During the first hours, while we were yet near 
the land, the sea was rather rough, but the 
further we got the calmer it grew. Now the 
great water extends before us quite smoothly 
— a pale blue sheet, and just in its stillness so 
infinite and so strange. For mankind has led 
for generations a life of such unnatural hurry 
that restlessness and movement always appear 
natural and comprehensible to us — absolute 
repose awes us. We no longer understand it. 
Our giant ship glides through the blue waves, 
and we scarcely realise its enormous rapidity, 
for in its mirror-like smoothness the sea seems 
to offer no resistance. The blue sky and the 
blue waters tremble and sparkle as if they dis- 
solved one into the other. It seems as if we 
could thus glide and float on for all eternity 
— a small dark speck in the infinite blue. It 
is a curious dream-like sensation — as if motion- 


198 


THE LETTERS 


less, out-stretched wings were carrying me for 
ever through space. 

And in the great blue silence I remember 
an old legend of the sea. 

In quite olden times — about which there 
exist no books, but only many a queer story 
which the inhabitants of distant-coasts have 
kept as traditions from their forefathers — in 
those olden times the sea was always as calm 
and blue as to-day, a shining mirror in which 
the sun, moon, and stars reflected much to 
their own satisfaction, for they considered 
that they had been well and beautifully made. 
Nobody then had ever seen a storm at sea; 
nobody knew what that was. On the main- 
land already a great many people were living, 
and as their number augmented, pain, misery, 
and suffering of all kind increased too. In 
their struggles and anguish the people often 
looked longingly towards the ever -quiet, 
smooth sea. At last their unhappiness grew 
so much, and their desire to escape from it 
became so intense, that they said, ‘ We can 
bear it no longer. Let us sail over the beauti- 
ful blue water, and perhaps we shall find 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 199 

happiness out there.’ Then they built a big 
ship, and called it Sea of Joy , and with it they 
sailed out on the clear blue sea. But the Sea 
of Joy was a World of Woe. Together with 
men, pain, misery, and suffering of all kinds 
had embarked on the ship, and it got so heavy 
through their weight that even the strong sea 
could not carry it, and after the Sea of Joy had 
sailed out a little way, she sank, and the blue 
waves closed over all the world’s woe. 

But deep down in the bottom of the sea, 
something now began to toss and turn, and 
those people who had remained on shore saw 
with wonder that the ever-equal sea began to 
change. It became restless, its deep blue 
turned to a dismal grey, and gigantic waves 
rose and broke thunderingly against the coast. 
White foam flew over their abysses. The sea 
fought and roared and raged in wild anger. 
It had become like the peaceless men them- 
selves — and they understood the sea, for they 
recognised in it all their own passions. 

Since then there have always been storms 
at sea, and ever anew the sea fights with all 
the strange woe sunk on its bottom. It fights 


200 


THE LETTERS 


to regain the old lost peace, but that will 
never come back. Even on the most quiet, 
clear days, a weary, troubled sighing seems to 
arise from the blue depths. 

P.S . — New York. The whole way out was 
calm and smooth — like a soothing pause in 
the midst of life, a six days’ parenthesis. Like 
music, the voice of great rolling waves lulls 
to sleep many an old pain. Music and long 
voyages are what we poor modern people 
need, for they calm us and teach us to forget. 

Whilst the ship was gliding ever onward, I 
had the growing impression that something 
horrible, which since a long time had held me 
in bondage, was at last and for ever remaining 
behind me. To how many others has this 
journey across the Atlantic already been a 
flight from the past? I also had that sensa- 
tion of flying and of throwing off a weight. 
As I awoke this morning in my cabin, I felt 
as if walls and chains had fallen down. And 
there she stood on her rock, the gigantic 
Liberty, who with her light seems to beckon 
and to give hope to the weary and over- 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 201 


burdened of all countries ! To put up Liberty 
as a symbol of a whole continent, and as a 
welcome to all — that only America could do ! 

LETTER XXXIV 

Tuxedo Park, May 1900. 

After we had landed at New York we got a 
kind note from Mr. Bridgewater asking us 
to spend a few days here at his house. I still 
felt so weary and exhausted after all I went 
through during the last weeks, that I gladly 
accepted the invitation to pick up a little 
strength in the country. Country life, however, 
as I remember it from my childhood, does not 
exist here, and the Tuxedians would be greatly 
astonished at the loneliness of North German 
estates, lying many miles one from the other, 
and only connected by country roads which 
during autumn and spring weather hinder 
intercourse more than they further it. Tuxedo 
Park once more proves to me that the Ameri- 
cans thoroughly understand exclusiveness, 
but scarcely appreciate solitude. They require 
plenty of other people and acquaintances— of 


202 


THE LETTERS 


course, only carefully chosen ones, who in 
every respect are socially desirable. In this 
need of society and dread of being alone they 
are not unlike children. The Park of Tuxedo 
extends around a lake, and on its wooded hills 
and slopes stand many pretty country-houses, 
Swiss cottages with carved wooden balconies, 
massive stone buildings with broad Southern- 
looking verandahs, small manor-like castles 
which try to appear ancient. All these country- 
seats are crowded closely together, the different 
gardens leading one into the other and forming 
all together the great park. Beautifully kept 
roads connect the houses, and they are being 
constantly used by people who drive or walk, 
and who all go one to the other in their char- 
acteristic craving for as many social gatherings 
as possible. Most of these houses are fitted 
with a degree of practical comfort and luxury 
entirely unknown to the average German 
country-house, but to each of these homes of 
plenty we Europeans add without imagination 
a large estate of fields and meadows as the 
necessary basis and accompaniment of so 
much wealth, instead of which the different 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 203 

houses are 1 only separated by a few minutes’ 
walk. 

Near the lake the club-house stands. It has 
a big ball-room, a reading-room, and contriv- 
ances for every kind of sport. In the after- 
noons the whole society meets there. It is an 
association of families which have founded 
here in the former hunting-grounds of the 
Indians a colony of rich people. During week- 
days the feminine element predominates as in 
most country resorts near New York, but the 
Saturday afternoon trains bring a lot of gentle- 
men, proprietors and guests, who remain till 
Monday to rest from the great exertion of 
making money. I never know what is the 
exact profession of American men ; I only 
know that they all make money. They appear 
to me like mysterious beings who possess a 
conjuring formula by which they know how to 
draw money from all corners, just as in India 
the jugglers by their weird chanting called 
forth cobras from odd, unexpected places. 

But the charm of America is its women, who 
always know how to set aside their own 
worries and make a profession of being ami- 


204 


THE LETTERS 


able. Perhaps they would be even more 
delightful if they were not in a perpetual 
hurry, as if afraid of missing something. 

There are some nice women here of con- 
tagious cheerfulness, and I don’t know if it is 
their influence or rather the full, warm spring, 
but I really feel sometimes as if I were just 
awakening out of a strange narcotised condi- 
tion. Thus the little dormice must feel when 
they stretch and yawn after their long winter 
sleep, and their small blinking eyes become 
conscious that the beautiful world is there 
once more. Then such an awakening little 
dormouse surely also calls out ‘ Good-morn- 
ing, dear friend.’ 


LETTER XXXV 

Tuxedo Park, May 1900. 

Mr. Bridgewater’s house here in Tuxedo is 
even nicer than his town-house. There is some- 
thing homelike about it. It reminds me of old 
Hessian country-places with its roughly hewn 
stone foundations rising to the first story, 
whilst above that the walls are whitewashed, 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 205 

with the beams of the wooden work standing 
out in their natural tints of deep, rich brown. 
The roofs are far projecting and some windows 
are surmounted by high gables. Old rococo 
angels of grey stone have been put up on 
one of the balconies, and one sees at once 
that all the ornaments of the house have been 
collected with loving care on long journeys, 
from the Spanish inlaid wainscoting of the 
dining-room to the wrought-iron railings of 
the staircase. 

The tower that stands out boldly in the 
principal courtyard is decorated on one side 
with stone relief work, which was taken from 
an old Bavarian peasant house and which 
represents St. George, the dragon-slayer. If 
to-day a dragon legend were to be written, it 
would have to be quite different from that old 
tale of handsome chivalrous George, who only 
went out to free the world from the wicked 
monster. To-day many puny gnomes sally 
forth against the dragon, whose home is far- 
away Cathay, but they don’t want to kill it, 
they merely intend getting fat on it. The 
modern St. George chains the dragon so that 


20 6 THE LETTERS 

it should remain quiet and allow itself to be 
milked. 

The south side of the tower still looks some- 
what empty, and Mr. Bridgewater intends 
putting up a clock there. He asked me if I 
could not make a design which might be 
painted on the wall around the clock, as you 
often see in old Bavarian houses. So I have 
made a sketch of a golden twelve-rayed sun 
with the clock in the centre. The rays corre- 
spond to the hours, and in each ofThe golden 
points a word is painted in Gothic letters. 
Here they are as they stand in succession : 
I. we begin, II. we want, III. we learn, IV. we 
obey, v. we love, VI. we hope, vii. we search, 
Vlli. we suffer, IX. we wait, X. we forgive, 
XI. we resign, XII. we end. The advancing 
handle marks the hour and its word, and there 
is many a one we should like to pass by quickly, 
so as to tarry longer at others — but we must 
accept all the hours, the good and the bad 
ones as they follow each other on life’s inexor- 
able great clock. 

What signs may there be standing over the 
hours of your future, dear friend? I often 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 207 


wonder about it, and I should like to lift the 
veil just a little, but again I think that it is 
better not to question and to search, but rather 
to enjoy the present spring hour, like the 
swarms of infinitesimal insects which dance 
above the lake in the sunshine. I wish that 
many, many, and only happy hours may be 
waiting for you, and this wish of mine is to be 
carried to you by the golden sunrays when 
they disappear to-night before my gaze, to go 
and shine for you on the other side of our 
glorious spring-world. 

LETTER XXXVI 

Tuxedo Park, May 1900. 

The days spent here have done me so much 
good that I feel loath to leave and to wander 
onward again. I have a vague foreboding as 
if after the rest in this quiet harbour, troubled 
seas were awaiting me outside. But this dread 
of life, that sometimes creeps over me like a 
shiver, must be the result of nerves still over- 
strung and of the weariness that remains after 
we have carried heavy loads. I feel like one 


208 


THE LETTERS 


suddenly awakened who trembles and does 
not know whither to turn ; yet sometimes 
during the last days it seemed as if I could 
hear many little voices softly whispering that 
with every new spring ‘the world becomes 
beautiful again/ That is the opinion of the 
swallows flitting through the air, and of the 
feathery, white clouds drifting on the blue sky, 
and of the thousands of sprall insects and 
millions of dust-specks dancing in the rays of 
the sun. The black cat basking in the sun- 
shine purrs full of absolute satisfaction with 
the present and of confidence in the future. 
It seems as if joy had suddenly become the 
common lot. And happiest among the happy 
Madame Baltykoff and Anstruther appear to 
be. They are also staying here on a visit, and 
really they had no need to tell me anything 
about it, for I only had to look at them. 
Madame Baltykoff has studied America most 
thoroughly, and the result has been that of all 
the products of this great continent, this one 
American appears to her the best and most 
worthy to be lastingly kept. She has grown 
less agitated ; perhaps she only needed the 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 209 

proper anchoring-ground like many a small 
tossed-about craft, and she has now found it. 
Anstruther explained to me that Madame 
Baltykoff is far superior to him in every 
respect (this belongs to every nice American’s 
creed about women, even about his own wife), 
only in his nationality he declared to possess 
a great advantage over her, and that he offers 
to share with her. ‘According to all her 
opinions,’ he said, ‘she ought to be a free 
American.’ Mr. Bridgewater says that this 
engagement is a step towards the Americanisa- 
tion of the world by social means, and this 
Americanisation he considers to be the task of 
the opening century. 

The only drawback in the general rejoicing 
is that Anstruther’s name will have to disappear 
from the Club of the Forty Most Clever Men. 
No married members are allowed. Isn’t it 
humiliating that in a country so well known 
for its courtesy to women, one should yet have 
come to the conclusion that marriage acts as 
a damper to the spirits ? 


o 


210 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER XXXVII 

New York, May 1900. 

We have left Tuxedo Park, and here in our 
New York rooms, where nothing has changed, 
and in the midst of all the well-known things 
that accompany me since so long, I have soon 
felt quite at home again, almost as if I had not 
been away at all, and as if the last weeks had 
never been. When I wake up in the morning 
I must first try to remember if it is all true, 
the sudden journey to Europe, all that I went 
through there, and our hurried return to 
America. Sometimes it all seems like a 
dream, as if I had fallen into a deep sleep 
from which I have just awakened to find 
everything unchanged and exactly as it has 
been for many a year. But then I suddenly 
realise that everything is indeed changed. I 
look about for the old well-known hopeless- 
ness. It is gone. I don’t see my way clearly 
at all. I don’t even try to. I let myself drift 
without thinking, without a will, and I don’t 
know where I am going, but sometimes I seem 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 211 


to see a small light shining in far distance. 
Since the earliest days of my youth I have 
not had such a quiet contented time, nor felt 
so free from suffering as if all restless wishing 
had been lulled to sleep. A spell seems to 
rest on the enchanted world. A thousand 
little silver bells sound softly from afar. 
Sometimes I scarce dare to breathe. Oh, 
that naught may disturb this wonderful hour ; 
that is my one and constant prayer as I listen 
with reverent wonder to the gentle ringing of 
bells which seems to rise from the depth of 
my own heart, a faint and timid and yet 
hopeful sound. 

Dear friend, I believe I am living in a fairy 
talel 


LETTER XXXVIII 

New York ,June 1900. 

SINCE a few days the papers bring disquieting 
telegrams from Peking, and it was a relief to 
hear yesterday that the foreign ministers had 
asked for Legation guards and that they had 
arrived safely, after the usual procrastinating 


212 


THE LETTERS 


palaver of the Tsungli Yamen, but without 
any serious efforts being made to hinder them. 
It reads like an exact repetition of what we 
saw in ’98. But we were destined to hear 
more yesterday about China than what the 
papers said. In the evening my brother and I 
went to dine at Sherry’s. Now that town gets 
daily more empty, there is not the same crowd 
there as in winter, but still one sees enough 
clean-shaven men in evening dress with gar- 
denias in the buttonhole, and enough ladies 
wearing smart gowns and large picture hats, 
to fancy that one has just stepped into a living 
picture-book of Gibson’s. 

After we had just sat down, several gentle- 
men walked up to the reserved table next to 
ours, and you can judge of our surprise when 
we discovered amongst them two friends from 
China — and such contrasts, too, they were : 
the Ruby Mines contractor, Bartolo, and Dr. 
Silberstein, that clever journalist, whom you 
considered as one of the few who utilised their 
stay in China for a really serious study of the 
country. Bartolo at once came to greet us, 
our tables were pushed together, and he then 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 213 

told us beamingly that he was just back from 
London, where he had succeeded in forming a 
syndicate for the Ruby Mines of the Kwantung 
Province. 

‘ There ’s a perfect rush for our shares/ he 
said. ‘ The South African War has been our 
great luck, for all the big capitalists who don’t 
get a penny from their gold shares all this 
time, have eagerly invested in our enterprise.’ 

‘ And do they really believe that the Ruby 
Mines can so soon show any returns ? ’ I asked ; 
and felt ashamed at my childish^ simplicity in 
business matters on being laughingly told by 
Bartolo : 

‘ Oh no, and really that is not of much con- 
sequence for the present. Until now we gain 
much more by the fluctuation of their prices. 
Our Ruby Mine shares are just now great 
speculation papers. Not a spadeful of earth 
has yet been turned, and yet our one-pound 
shares are already quoted at 140. It ’s grand ! ’ 

Then he went on to tell us : 

‘ Our Rubies, as they are commonly called, 
are also very much favoured by the English 
aristocracy. The Duchess of X. wrote to me 


214 


THE LETTERS 


just before I sailed, “Dear Bartolo, I’m told 
that the Rubies are good. I should like 
to go in for ten shares. Kindly send them. 
I enclose ten pounds.” That old lady, who 
knows all quotations like any broker, was 
suddenly pretending to have returned to 
infantile innocence and not to be aware 
that ten shares at 140 were worth ^1400. 
Well, I considered the matter for a while, 
and as the Duchess is a political woman 
whom I wanted to keep in a good humour, 
I sent her three shares, returning seven 
pounds, and I wrote that the Rubies were 
so much sought after that I had not been 
able to get her any more.’ 

Bartolo told us that in Shanghai the finest 
house on the Bund has been rented for the 
administration of the Ruby Mines Company, 
Limited. 

‘Yes/ he said, ‘the thing is to be managed 
on a broad basis. We are quite convinced of 
that in London. One large house in Shanghai, 
another in Peking, no gingerly penny savings 
on ads., plenty of entertainments, to which we 
must induce the Chinese to come, and then 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 215 

after dinner, over coffee and cigarettes, a quick 
settlement of pending questions. Those are 
my principles. I shall be worthily assisted by 
these, my young collaborators.’ And Bartolo 
waved his hand towards two young scions of 
noble houses, whom he had previously intro- 
duced as Marchese del Monte Victorioso and 
Vicomte le Ruinard. The Marchese del Monte 
Victorioso, who has loaned this title from his 
father for trans-oceanic use, is a handsome 
young man, the happy resul^of Italian and 
Anglo-Saxon crossing. Whether his evening 
dress, which did not succeed in marring that 
splendid Antinous-like shape, had been paid 
for; chi lo sa ? But many of the fair ladies 
present threw very promising looks at him 
from under their large picture hats, and I said 
to myself that youth, beauty, and a title (even 
if only loaned) represent a capital which brings 
better profits than all Ruby Mine shares. I 
can quite fancy Monte Victorioso as the central 
figure at the Bubbling Well Road Drive, the 
races, the country club, and all the other social 
gatherings with which one tries at Shanghai, 
as well as everywhere else, to hide the empti- 


21 6 


THE LETTERS 


ness of existence. But for business purposes 
these two companions won’t be of much use to 
Bartolo. However, he seems to derive pure 
joy out of the mere presence of these titled 
youths, although they are black, or, at the 
best, grey sheep, whom he kindly takes for 
a while off the hands of their respective 
families. 

Le Ruinard is being exported by the wish 
of his parents to get him away from the in- 
fluence of an expensive Parisian lady. During 
dinner he appeared rather downcast until he 
heard that we had lived a long time in Peking. 
Then he thawed and asked eagerly for news 
about the social life of the Chinese capital. I 
heard him whisper to my brother : ‘ Et les dames 
de la cour de Pekin ? Quelque chose a faire ? ’ 

I am afraid that disappointments of the 
most varied kind await immigrants to Peking ! 
But the two brilliant attaches of the Ruby 
Mines Company, Limited, soon withdrew ; they 
are starting to-morrow for China with Bartolo, 
via San Francisco, and I daresay they wanted 
to enjoy their last night in full civilisation. 

We stayed on a while with Bartolo and 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 217 

Dr. Silberstein, who is on his way back from 
Asia, and who intends remaining here some 
time to prepare an English edition of his book 
on China. I asked them for their opinion 
about the disquieting telegrams from Peking. 
Bartolo declared them to be merely news 
artificially spread by some stock exchange 
men to depress the Rubies, so as to buy 
them at lower prices. But Silberstein took 
the news very gravely and said they were 
the first open expression of things which 
one could see gathering already since some 
time. ‘ For months/ he said, * something 
seemed to be stirring deep down in the 
underground of the Chinese world, as if the 
dragon, who rests in the depth of earth, was 
awakening and moodily stretching his limbs. 
Into the seemingly inert masses of the people 
that surrounded us, life came. For a long 
while the yellow millions have scarcely been 
considered as factors that need be considered 
in any speculations about the future. Now 
it seems to me as if they were going to throw 
off their long apathy and were getting ready 
to strike a great blow/ 


21 8 


THE LETTERS 


‘ But, my dear sir,’ Bartolo interrupted him, 
‘the Chinese are a contented and most easily 
manageable people.’ 

‘ So they are,’ answered Silberstein, ‘ but dis- 
content has been artificially inculcated in the 
most resigned of all people. They only wanted 
to let life glide on with all its imperfections 
as it had done since the days of the classics. 
But more and more numerous people came 
who spoke of change and progress, and who 
all had some article which they wished to 
press on the Chinese as quite indispensable 
for their welfare : religions, weapons, railways, 
steamships. In the wake of all these innova- 
tions Discontent crept into the land. The 
foreign machinery has caused thousands to 
tremble for their small livings, but not enough 
that the living felt menaced ; even the dead 
were to be ousted from their resting-places, 
for in raising all the new edifices on the 
foreign settlements, and in tracing the future 
railway lines it was impossible to heed the 
innumerable graves scattered all over the 
country. This appears as the highest sacri- 
lege to all Chinese. They also could not 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 219 

but see that through the means of their 
spiritual shepherds the converts to the new 
faith found strong support in all their worldly 
difficulties, to the detriment of their heathen 
brethren. Thus the religiously indifferent 
people, through entirely worldly reasons, 
gradually became fanatic, and their political 
hatred awoke as they became conscious that 
the foreigners disdainfully looked upon China 
as a melon ready to be sliced. Since then sects 
have sprung up for the expulsion of the hated 
strangers. At first they were only tolerated, 
but to-day they are openly supported by the 
authorities. 

‘ My dear doctor/ said Bartolo, ‘ I ’m afraid 
that the depressing influence of a prolonged 
sojourn in Peking has turned you, like so 
many others, into an inveterate pessimist. 
Our news from China is highly satisfac- 
tory. Well, if really the Chinese authorities 
were to raise some little difficulties, what of 
that? The proper mixture of showing the 
first and holding out golden reasons has 
always yet convinced them, and as to actual 
danger through Chinese rebels, well, I don’t 


220 


THE LETTERS 


suppose you intend discussing that seriously 
— why, they are a miserable, cowardly rabble ! 
Throw a handful of copper cash into a Chinese 
crowd and they will forget everything to fight 
and scramble for them, and before one single 
European soldier a hundred Chinese bravos 
will take to flight.’ 

‘Yes, I know/ answered Silberstein ; ‘that 
is the modern school’s opinion about China. 
I personally don’t share it. I believe we are 
on the eve of great events which nothing can 
ward off any more, and they are the logical 
outcome of our own errors.’ 


LETTER XXXIX 

New York, 5 th June 1900. 
The great Bartolo and his two stylish A.D.C.’s 
have started. Before leaving they sent me 
a huge basket full of deep red roses most 
appropriately tied up with ruby - coloured 
ribbons ; their cards were attached to it in 
an envelope marked with the motto, Rubi 
gagne. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 221 


I had just sat down this morning to describe 
this to you when I took up the paper and 
found the startling news that the Huang- 
tsung station on the Peking railway has been 
burned by the Boxers, and that French and 
Belgian engineers from the Luhan line have 
fled to Tientsin, where they arrived after 
having suffered severely at the hands of the 
rebels. Missionaries have been murdered in 
different places with the knowledge of the 
Mandarins; an attack by the Boxers is ex- 
pected at Tientsin, and the situation in Peking 
is said to be grave. 

During the last few days the telegrams 
have been quite reassuring, saying that since 
the arrival of the Legation guards at Peking 
everything was quiet there, so that I had 
forgotten all about Boxers and other realities, 
and was leading a dreamy, quiet life. This 
news came quite suddenly, making me feel 
as if I were roughly shaken out of my sleep. 

As I had just finished reading the paper, 
Miss Tatiana de Gribojedoff came flying into 
my room. She said that she had only just 
heard that we were back in New York, and 


222 


THE LETTERS 


that I was the very person whom she wanted 
to see to talk Chinese matters over. She 
pulled a paper out of her reticule and began 
reading in a trembling voice the telegrams. 
She is quite indignant that nothing has been 
foreseen and nothing done to prevent this 
outbreak. In all Chinese events she only 
sees the result of Russian intrigues, to counter- 
act which the Anglo-Saxons, in her opinion, 
have been appointed by the Lord. With the 
severe tone of one who is personally entitled 
to call to account, she asked, ‘ I wonder what 
Salisbury is about ? * I could not furnish her 
with any satisfactory answer to this, but 
instead I had to give her full particulars 
about the Chinese localities mentioned in 
the telegrams. 

Besides the morning papers, the reticule 
also contained a folding map of China. Miss 
Tatiana spread it on the floor and I had to 
show her all the places and to answer a 
thousand questions. I was feeling very 
anxious and worried myself, but I could not 
help laughing at Miss Tatiana, who followed 
all my explanations with wrinkled brows, 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 223 

and stared at the map with intense serious- 
ness as if the responsibility for a plan of 
campaign were resting on her. She explained 
to me that the United States have a great 
mission in China ; that it is their duty to 
restore order, which evidently has only been 
disturbed by Russian plotting, and to watch 
that these events should not be made the 
pretext for land grabbing. 

On leaving, Miss Tatiana announced her 
intention of stopping in New York until the 
situation should have cleared, and of coming 
often to consult us on Chinese affairs. 

It is evident that human beings would 
perish from ennui if they had no cares, and 
therefore Miss Tatiana, who has no real ones, 
sees fit to create artificial ones for herself in 
the political domain. 


LETTER XL 

New York, 14 th June 1900. 
For several days I have felt as if the 
whole world were drifting without knowing 


224 


THE LETTERS 


whither, and as if some impenetrable and 
sinister doom were hanging over us, and to- 
day’s telegrams are like the tearing of a veil, 
as if in a dense fog out at sea a rock suddenly 
loomed threateningly before us. 

‘ Members of Legations have been attacked 
in Peking. The English summer Legation has 
been destroyed. Prince Tuan and other anti- 
foreign Mandarins have been appointed to the 
Tsungli Yamen.’ 

And only those small Legation guards! 
What can they do if matters really become 
serious? 

Another telegram says that the United 
States Minister at Peking has wired asking 
for two thousand soldiers, but when can they 
get there ? 

I keep thinking of Hofer. He said that 
the most important measure was to hold 
cavalry in readiness, and oh, how right that 
militant churchman is now proved to have 
been. He and many other missionaries, and 
also the Chinese Association in Hong-Kong 
had warned us in time, and as early as 
March the Shanghai papers brought im- 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 225 

pressive articles about the coming of a great 
danger. It seems as if everybody had feared 
the approach of some calamity; only ex- 
cepting those purposely put on the look-out 
as sentinels. 

But all the warning calls died away un- 
heeded. Nobody wished to be disturbed in 
the convenient optimistic belief that every- 
thing was going on satisfactorily, and that 
our little earth is a nice, comfortable place 
to live in. Everywhere there was a general 
desire to avoid complications, and to keep 
well out of the necessity of taking up a 
position that might lead to active interference. 
The world was full of a great yearning for 
rest. Statesmanship seemed reduced to the 
one art of avoiding all things which could 
engender new piles of documents. 

And all this was intensified by special 
circumstances. The Americans say, and quite 
openly in their papers, that they have no 
troops to spare for China because they need 
them in the Philippines. The Boers are just 
sufficient work for the English to have on 
their hands. ‘ Our teeth unfortunately are in 
P 


226 


THE LETTERS 


South Africa,’ their great man is said to have 
answered when he was lately being pressed 
to show his teeth to the Chinese. France 
is particularly interested that no disturbance 
should occur in China, for in Exhibition 
years good-will and merriment are to reign all 
over the world. Exhibitions are for nations 
what engagements are for families. On these 
festive occasions old feuds are buried for 
a while and everybody pretends suddenly to 
see reasons for general rejoicing. But those 
dark, unknown forces that drive us, the 
inexorable destiny which stands above us, 
and which allows that to happen which we 
afterwards call history — they pay no heed 
to nations’ or families’ festivities, nor to the 
weary yearning for repose of aged generations. 
They lead us irresistibly onward we know not 
whither — and as in a dense fog at sea there 
suddenly arise threatening rocks before us. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 227 


LETTER XLI 

New York, i 7th June 1900. 
With anxious suspense I was waiting this 
morning for the papers, and I opened them 
fully expecting bad news, but not this haunting 
horror: ‘ The Legations have been attacked, one 
of the foreign ministers has been murdered.’ 

And this news has come nobody knows 
where from ; like all evil tidings spread in 
the East, they have crept on stealthily as dark 
rumours, so that one expects even a thousand 
times more sinister facts behind them. For all 
telegraphic communication with Peking is cut 
off. The news trickles through mysterious 
channels. It is as if behind locked gates a 
horrible tragedy was being enacted — suddenly 
we hear groans, blood runs over the doorstep, 
we don’t know what has happened, but we feel 
that it must be something atrocious and 
abominable — there — behind that door — we 
want to help, to force the lock, to smash open 
the door — and we cannot, and cannot ! 

It is like the torment of a hideous nightmare. 


228 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER XLII 

New York, 19 th June 1900. 
The Taku forts have been taken. 

That surely must cow the Chinese and 
bring them to reason ! And now surely the 
relief column, which Admiral Seymour is lead- 
ing, will soon reach Peking, or perhaps it is 
there already. Several times its arrival has 
been announced, and then the news was again 
retracted. 

But how can all those fantastic sounding 
things we read be possible? That question 
we ask one another over and over again. 
There is something unreal and dreamlike 
about it all, and one struggles to be able to 
wake up and shake off all the nightly phan- 
toms. When I remember the quiet and 
monotony of our Peking years, I often say to 
myself that all this is impossible, and that it 
can be but the fancy of a maddened brain 
which nobody believes in. 

About how many things did one not hear 
complaints in China! They ranged from heat, 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 229 

dust, and mosquitoes to overwork and anger 
at the Tsungli Yamen’s obstinacy and annoy- 
ance at the great people at home, to whom 
China is as a sealed book, and who yet 
fancy they know everything best. But that 
danger to our personal safety ever could 
become a subject of grievance against Provi- 
dence and the Chinese, that never entered our 
heads. It would have appeared preposterous 
to everybody, and all what we hear now 
sounds absolutely incredible ; but when I take 
up the papers and I see all those telegrams 
printed in big type, and when I hear everybody 
talking about nothing but China, then I know 
that what appears as the most improbable and 
wildest adventure has come to be true in our 
days. 

We have only known the Chinese as a poor, 
crushed people. They seemed to submit 
patiently to oppression and injustice, and also 
to nature’s great devastating catastrophes. 
Perhaps they look upon it all as the relatively 
unimportant accompaniment of a greater evil — 
Life. During centuries they have been raised 
in a system whose extortions, injustice, and 


230 


THE LETTERS 


deceit rest on the eternal laziness and cowardice 
of the great masses. Every individual there 
had always some one more powerful above him, 
whom he had to conciliate, to talk over, or to 
bribe. The only chance of relief and escape 
from this enormous weight lay in cunningly 
outwitting the oppressor. In China, as so 
often elsewhere too in human relations, the 
strong enslaves the weaker, and in return is 
duped by him. 

To me the Chinese appeared easily con- 
tented, only asking that the few copper coins 
which they earn daily should not be taken 
from them by their tormentors ; but should 
this nevertheless happen, they thought best 
to accept it philosophically, if they lacked 
the cunning to get round it somehow. Poor 
people, grown mean and deceitful through 
oppression ! Their natural bent seems to lead 
them much more towards small subterfuges, 
subtle misrepresentations, and little treacheries 
than towards great deeds. Yet now we are 
told that they all have suddenly turned into 
frenzied warriors, ready to fight the lords of 
the earth. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 231 

One more enigma in ever enigmatic China ! 

It also seems strange to be reading now in 
American papers that these same Chinese, 
whom we only knew plunged in apathy and 
blunted by constant misery, are in reality 
beings of extraordinary nervous disposition, 
who were excited by fanatics to a wild hatred 
of foreigners, and hypnotised by them to 
believe blindly in their own invulnerability and 
in the perfect certitude of victory. But I can- 
not help thinking that those hypnotisers 
exercised their power on the foreigners at 
Peking more than on anyone else, lulling them 
into a wonderful delusion of safety. 

Miss Tatiana comes to see me assiduously, 
and she delivers long speeches in which she 
calls the various cabinets to account. Silber- 
stein met her and said afterwards : ‘ That ’s a 
lady who ought to write a volume of Junius 
letters.’ 

They discussed Chinese affairs, and Miss 
Tatiana always repeated the same question, 
why the Anglo-Saxon statesmen, in whom she 
has put her faith all her life long, have not fore- 
seen and forestalled any of these events. 


232 


THE LETTERS 


Silberstein answered: ‘Yes, the news from 
China is indeed calculated to shake the founda- 
tions of one’s belief in far-seeing political 
wisdom. But altogether there is much less 
planning and guiding in the world’s affairs 
than we are taught to believe at school. The 
greatest events come unexpectedly. One had 
allowed oneself to drift without asking whither, 
and suddenly one stood face to face with sur- 
prising facts. The current heroship then con- 
sists in extricating oneself cleverly out of 
difficulties, and in pretending subsequently that 
everything had been foreseen.’ 

‘But,’ said Miss Tatiana, ‘this anti-foreign 
party’s hostility to all our American commercial 
interests ought to have been recognised at 
once ; why was it ever allowed to grow to such 
an extent ? ’ 

‘ The only way of fighting it effectually,’ 
answered Silberstein, ‘would have been to 
have taken openly the part of the Emperor 
and his young reformer friends. And there 
was a moment when it might perhaps have 
been done. But nobody had the necessary 
courage, and nobody probably saw how much 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 233 

was at stake. The decisive hour for China was 
the coup dttat of the Dowager-Empress in 
September ’98. That in those days the whole 
world looked on, whilst progress, which at last 
had found fervent adherents, was being anni- 
hilated and replaced by the darkest reaction : 
that is being avenged on us to-day. For how- 
ever clever it may seem at the moment to avoid 
all intervention, it is ultimately always avenged 
if our dread of complications induces us to allow 
that to be crushed which we know to be the 
higher and nobler part. Whoever speaks to- 
day of ideal views in politics only meets with 
a pitying shrug of the shoulders, and yet if 
one of the Powers had then stood up for the 
ideal aspirations of the Reform Party, it would 
probably to-day be the leading one in China, 
and the unavoidable conflicts which would have 
been encountered at first could never have been 
of the magnitude of those whose beginning 
only we are seeing. The United States might 
have taken that part, all the more as their 
hands are clean with regard to China. But to 
take such resolutions great leading lines of 
thought are required, and unfortunately the 


234 


THE LETTERS 


shop where ideas for statesmen and diplo- 
matists and plots for authors are sold doesn’t 
exist yet.’ 


LETTER XLIII 

New York, 21 st June 1900. 
The horrible dream continues, no news from 
Peking, and, worse than all, no news from you. 
Where are you, dear friend ? My daily hope 
is to get a telegram from you saying that you 
have safely arrived in Shanghai from your 
great journey into the interior. You ought 
to be back by this time. What can have 
detained you. I do so long to hear from you 
that I feel ill with suspense. The heat weighs 
like lead on the town. Day and night the 
air never seems to cool down. The nights 
are the worst. They appear so endless with 
all their troubled thoughts and feverish dozing, 
their vague terrifying visions. The heat then 
gets to be a tangible being ; in the dark I 
can feel it weighing on me like a night- 
mare’s monster. I fancy that I can touch 
and seize it. The papers say, as they do 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 235 


every year, that this is an abnormal summer ; 
never have men and beasts suffered so much 
from the heat, never have there been so many 
sunstrokes. It would seem as if people de- 
rived some sort of consolation from fancying 
that their sufferings are exceptionally great, 
so great that they attain a certain significance. 
But in reality nothing signifies. Suffering 
only then appears exceptionally great to us, 
when it happens to be our own. Could we 
widen the conception of our personality, thus 
embracing more misery, we should again con- 
sider these new torments, which till then 
were unknown to us, as exceptionally great. 

If in millions of years the dead world re- 
volves, an ice-covered ball, through endless 
space, what will the small beings matter then 
who once upon a time died on it of heat ? 

The town is quite empty. We are still 
here, and I should not like to go away, for just 
in this terrible heat I sometimes fancy to be 
where all my thoughts are — behind the high 
town-walls of Peking. The heat alone there 
at this time of year, and without anything else 
— what martyrdom ! I should like to take my 


236 


THE LETTERS 


share of it, to help carry the burden. How 
beautiful it would be if we could carry for 
others, if one could say, ‘ Rest, for now I will 
put my shoulder under the load.’ But the 
woe of the world is not like a load of a certain 
size ; the more that eat of it the smaller each 
share gets. No, it grows with every new 
guest, it is always in abundance on the table, 
even if ever new millions sit down to it. To 
help to bear? That is but one of the many 
illusions with which the great hopelessness 
is to be hidden. Every one bears what lay 
already in his cradle and grew with him ; he 
bears it because it cannot be helped. And 
before, beside, and behind him there are rows 
and rows of other poor beings who all are 
bearing their own burden. 

Nobody can relieve another of his yoke so 
that he shall truly breathe freely : we can 
only add to our own trouble the thought of 
the other’s — we can but suffer with him. 

Oh, how I suffer here with all those whom 
I left in Peking ! How I do suffer with you, 
dear friend ! My thoughts are for ever search- 
ing for you, sometimes behind the gloomy 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 237 


walls of Peking, which surround with their 
sinister silence the fate of so many ; some- 
times in great, mysterious China, from whose 
different parts constant news of revolts and 
massacres is reaching us. 

And yet, with all my pity and suffering, I 
cannot help you in any way ! 


LETTER XLIV 

New York, 22nd June 1900. 
Dear Friend, — In these times of growing 
care and anxiety I think so constantly of 
Peking and of all that may be happening 
there, that I often fancy to be in the midst of 
it myself, and I scarce know where I am in 
reality. If any one speaks to me, I start up 
as if I had been shaken out of a dream, and 
I must make an effort to remember the sur- 
rounding world. For hours and hours I lie 
awake at night, and, by the utmost force 
of will, I try to raise the impenetrable cur- 
tain which separates us, and I listen breath- 
lessly if no voice will ever come to me through 


238 


THE LETTERS 


the deep stillness to bring me tidings. Then 
every morning there is the same feverish 
waiting until the papers arrive, the same 
absolute belief that to-day they must con- 
tain the blessed news ; and then the bitter 
disappointment, the vanishing of hope — ever 
the same sinister silence. 

Pictures of our Peking life are gliding past 
my eyes, and I try to retain all ever so small 
remembrances of those long gone days — for 
they are my own treasure — the only thing 
perhaps that is left to me. As if the dust 
were wiped from an old faded painting and 
its colours again appeared bright, thus a 
thousand forgotten details come crowding 
back into my memory. Day by day the tale 
of the years, in which we have met and known 
each other, unrolls itself before me, and con- 
stantly I see you looking at me from out 
of the depths of the past. 

On first seeing some people I have had the 
vague impression of having known them 
formerly, although I was absolutely sure of 
meeting them for the first time in this life. 
Where, when could I have passed them ? What 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 239 

was it that had once united us, the memory 
of which distant time now faintly spoke? 

Never have I had this sensation so in- 
tensely, dear friend, as on the day when I 
first saw you. 

Do you remember ? 

It was at a dinner-party in Peking in the 

house of the Minister of , one of the last 

representatives of that old political school 
which still believed in the invincible power 
of China, and whose adherents, by treating 
this Asiatic conglomeration as an equal Great 
Power, found a satisfaction for their own 
personal diplomatic vanity. 

I remember that when my brother and I 
entered, most guests had already assembled. 
Our host was just explaining to a newly 
arrived colleague the intricate question of 
the audiences of foreign representatives. It 
was a subject which he particularly liked, 
and he was relating pathetically how the 
Emperor of China had been forced to grant 
ever new concessions to the strangers in the 
ceremonial of receiving them. This minister 
was very proud of being accredited to a court 


240 


THE LETTERS 


— a trait occasionally to be found in repub- 
licans — and he took it as a personal offence 
if this, his own special court, was not esti- 
mated as a full-fledged one. I met him once 
after one of those audiences, and he proudly 
said : ‘ I have just been in the presence of 
Royalty.’ 

A staff of young interpreters surrounded 
the old minister, and, by their help, the 
foreigners conveyed a few phrases to an 
ancient, fossilised-looking member of the 
Tsungli Yamen, who was amongst the guests, 
and who did not know a word of any European 
language. Two young Chinese also were pre- 
sent, smartly dressed in long, flowing silk robes, 
delicately tinted jackets, and black skullcaps, 
with a big white pearl over the middle of the 
brow. Evidently Peking swells ! They were 
introduced to me as ‘Marquis Tshiao Feng Lo 
and brother,’ who were said to speak English. 
I addressed the older looking as Marquis, 
but he answered, ‘ My brother, he be Marquis, 
me be plain Esquire.’ In the most startling 
pidgin-English the two brothers then explained 
to me that the elder one was but an adopted 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 241 

child of the former Marquis Tshiao, and whilst 
they were still trying to make me understand 
the intricate question of adoption in China, 
our host walked up to me. 

You were following him. 

He introduced you. 

And as I looked up at you, I had the dis- 
tinct impression of having known you formerly, 
although I knew with absolute certainty that 
I was seeing you for the first time. 

It was a very strange sensation. I felt as if 
I were standing before the gate which shuts us 
off from the knowledge of what we once have 
been, prior to these short, earthly years for 
which our weak memory is barely sufficient; 
and with the utmost exertion of all my 
faculties of thought and remembrance I was 
trying to push ajar this gate for an instant. 

At dinner we were seated far apart, but 
when I bent forward a little I could see you at 
the other end of the table. And I kept asking 
myself, ‘When? Where?* In the buzz of 
general conversation I caught several times the 
sound of your voice, and it seemed strangely 
familiar, as if I had heard it for years. 

Q 


242 


THE LETTERS 


After dinner we spoke a long time together, 
and with every minute that odd feeling of old 
acquaintance and familiarity grew upon me, 
and I thought I could read in your eyes, too, 
an expression of wondering recognition. 

Since our arrival in Peking I had, of course, 
been hearing a great deal about you, about 
your strange and adventurous journeys into 
China, scarcely ever explored by Europeans ; 
about your wonderful collections and your 
friendships with Lamas of remote convents 
who never would have spoken with any other 
white man, but who, on account of your deep 
Buddhistic researches, counted you almost as 
one of themselves. I had naturally been very 
eager to know you, but what I felt on at 
last meeting you had nothing to do with 
what I had heard about the circumstances of 
your present life; the roots of this feeling 
of recognition seemed to reach back into the 
grey distance of long forgotten times. 

On our way home, whilst the two-wheeled 
blue cart tossed about on the rough road like 
a ship at sea, and the mule could only by the 
utmost efforts drag it out of the deep holes, 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 243 

and later on in my little room of the H6tel de 
P£kin I kept asking myself, ‘ When ? Where ? * 

But on that night I found no answer. 

LETTER XLV 

New York, 2 3rd June 1900. 
To-DAY I write to tell you how I found the 
answer ! 

Write to you ? And I don’t even know where 
you are, nor if this letter will ever lie before 
you. I don’t know if any future will yet be 
ours, or if the whole rest of life must be but a 
weary remembering of days that are gone. 

And yet I feel sometimes as if your thoughts 
surrounded me, as if you were listening some- 
where in far distance for a word from me. I 
will send out this little tale to search for you 
in wide space ; half forgotten, it has lain 
hidden, yet now I feel that all the time the 
hope was there of whispering it once to you on 
the evening of some future golden summer 
day. 

It was on the morning after the old minister’s 
dinner-party. On her thick felt soles my amah 


244 


THE LETTERS 


came noiselessly into my room. Her black 
hair was tightly pulled back and twisted into 
a kind of horn at the back of her head. She 
invariably wore indigo blue cotton coats; with 
the growing cold in winter she used to put one 
blue wadded garment on the top of the other, 
till she looked like a barrel, and her arms 
stood out like fat, blue sausages ; but in 
summer, when all her thick winter dresses 
were resting in some pawnshop, she appeared 
quite slim. My amah was a Christian, and 
had been brought up by the French nuns in 
the Petang school. There she had picked up 
some French words, and this facilitated inter- 
course with her, if once you had agreed 
about the meaning she gave the words. 

On that morning the amah looked beaming, 
and she said : 

‘ Joli Monsieur has sent a present for Ma- 
dame! Whoever sent a present was joli , 
according to the amah's French ; she evidently 
judged that handsome is as handsome does. 
In her slender, yellowish hands she was 
carrying a green jade bowl filled with pink 
magnolia blossoms. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 245 


Between the flowers your card was lying. 

I bent over the magnolias, and as I inhaled 
their sweet scent a strange sensation crept 
over me, as if I had already once lived through 
this very same scene. I seemed to be dream- 
ing, and I felt as if some invisible, mysterious 
power were standing behind me, compelling 
me to act as I now did. Mechanically I took 
one of the brown branches, on which two 
beautiful pink blossoms were opening between 
their small velvety sepals. Mechanically I 
walked up to the dull and cracked looking- 
glass, and obeying the strange foreign will- 
power that led me, I held the flowers above 
me, twisted a plait of my hair between them, 
and thus fastened them on my head. 

But in the instant when I had done this and 
bent forward to see better in the looking-glass, 
the walls of the small hotel-room, the furni- 
ture, the amah , and everything that a second 
before had been standing there, suddenly 
vanished. I myself had disappeared — and yet 
I could see. 

I saw a wide expanse of smooth blue sea, 
reflecting infinite spaces of cloudless sky. 


246 


THE LETTERS 


Sometimes the glistening sheet of water 
seemed to heave, as if the sea were sighing in 
a dream ; then a small wave would run along 
the sparkling, golden sand-beach, and sink 
back again into the calm, eternal blue. Two 
figures were sitting on the shore. They both 
were tall and strong, and their garments were 
made of some soft fur ; their fair locks hung 
down over their shoulders, and their eyes were 
blue and clear and as unfathomable as the 
deep sea stretching out before them. They 
seemed surrounded by a halo of youth and 
early dawn’s light and world’s beginning. The 
man bent down towards the water, and stretch- 
ing his hand out, he seized a large, open, pink 
shell, which a wave was softly washing towards 
the shore. He held it out to his companion. 
She took it, lifted it high above herself, and 
twisting a lock of her hair between the two 
iridescent halves of the glistening pink shell, 
she fastened it on her head. Then she turned 
smilingly towards the man ; but his face had 
suddenly taken your traits, and the picture of 
the woman which his eyes reflected — was my 


own. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 247 

I bent forward to see more — but the vision 
disappeared — the blue sea turned grey and 
blurred — the two figures vanished. 

I was standing again in the shabby Peking 
hotel-room ; the small cracked looking-glass 
hung on the wall opposite, and the amah was 
looking at me as if nothing had happened. 

But my question, ‘ When ? Where ? ’ had 
been answered. 

In primeval times we both must once have 
sat on a sunny, golden beach — and perhaps 
I was the being in whom the wish first arose 
to look beautiful in the eyes of another. 

The green jade bowl, which you sent me 
with the magnolia flowers, never has left me 
since. To-day, also, it is standing before me, 
and I gaze at the strange characters chiselled 
into the hard, green stone, which say, ‘ What 
has once been on the eternal whee^ of things 
must for ever return/ 

Weird memories of the past, trembling fore- 
bodings of the future, creep over me and make 
me shudder. For we grope about in the dark 
until we vanish in absolute night — we know not 
whence we came nor whither we are going. 


248 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER XLVI 

New York, 24 th June 1900. 
Always the same contradictory news in the 
papers. The descriptions of horrible massacres, 
and at the same time the assurances of Chinese 
Ministers abroad that the foreigners in Peking 
are still alive, and that one of the so-called 
Chinese generals is trying to protect them. 
What is one to believe? Alas, we always 
believe to the very last what our heart wishes 
most. 

I have begun reading my Peking diary. On 
each page I find your name, dear friend, and 
the mention of some surprise and pleasure 
which you had thought of for me. In those 
days I accepted it all without much thinking 
— as if it could not be otherwise — but now, 
on reading it all, it seems as if distant voices 
arose out of the old leaves, telling me softly 
about things which I only vaguely knew. 
Now I understand — now, when perhaps . . . 
But I will not think of that agonising horror 
It is impossible that it should end thus 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 249 

Besides, there is not the slightest fact to 
make me think that you are imprisoned in 
Peking — only that it is time you should be 
back from your journey. But how often do 
such tours into the interior last much longer 
than one first had thought, and when you 
heard on your way of the revolts, you surely 
will have found means of escape. You had 
so many friends among the natives, and you 
always appeared to me as the one foreigner 
who really was in touch with the Chinese 
world. You, who were personally acquainted 
with palace employees, censors, masters of 
guilds, and literati, whilst many of the other 
Europeans seemed to pride themselves on 
knowing as little as possible about the children 
of the land. And it comforts me now to re- 
member that you also had friends among the 
Mongols, who come every autumn to Peking 
in large caravans, and amongst the dealers 
who wander through the remotest provinces, 
and hunt up celebrated old vases for rich 
collectors. From all these people you used to 
receive tidings of things which remained for 
ever hidden to other strangers, and you surely 


250 


THE LETTERS 


noticed beforehand the great work of under- 
mining and agitation, which must have pre- 
ceded these recent events which surprise us 
like sudden revelations. Surely you were 
warned in time, for you are probably the 
only foreigner knowing China so well that 
you could dive into the seething masses of 
its people without leaving a trace — ‘The 
Strickland of China,’ some Kipling enthusiasts 
once called you. If any one, you surely must 
have been saved ! 

But why don’t I hear a syllable from you ? 
Oh, this perpetual brooding and yearning — 
the desire to know, and at the same time the 
dread of knowing. 

Constantly my thoughts drift back to those 
years that are past. Once more I see before 
me our little Peking house, which you helped 
us to arrange and furnish. Surrounded by 
walls, it stood in the street behind the Lega- 
tions, near the Hatamen, where there are 
some big old trees, and where a temple is said 
formerly to have been. I remember the small 
courtyard with the huge weather-stained stone 
turtle, the Chinese symbol of immortality, and 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 251 

I remember the wisteria with its lilac flower- 
grapes twining around a gnarled old trunk, 
and trailing over the grey roof. How many 
evenings we spent sitting there. The wind 
was playing in the branches. Softly the pale 
flowers dropped down on us. A belated bee 
flew humming through the yard. From 
beyond the walls the strange evening calls 
of vendors passing through the grey streets 
reached us faintly — sounds from a world 
whose small external sounds we gradually 
learned to distinguish, but whose genius and 
inner life will for ever remain dark and mys- 
terious to us. And in such hours the con- 
sciousness of infinite distance came to be 
oppressive like a dead-weight, like the dreamy 
feeling of being lost in space, cut off by 
infinity from all that had once been our 
world. 

What may have happened to our little 
house, and what has become of the little group 
of white men and women whom we knew there, 
who lived blindly secure in the midst of a 
foreign hostile world ? It seems as if they had 
all been spirited away, vanishing into a night 


252 


THE LETTERS 


which we cannot fathom. I see them all before 
me as they had assembled in our small yard 
on the morning of our departure to bid us 
farewell. The house looked dreary and empty. 
Ta was ordering about the coolies who carried 
away the last trunks and boxes. We sat 
about on the door-steps and on the back of 
the old stone turtle, and there was a hubbub 
of many languages. Good-byes were said and 
rendezvous arranged for the Paris Exhibition. 
‘ Au revoir ! Auf Wiedersehen * The words 
for ever ring in my ears ; how often did we 
not all repeat them on that morning, feeling 
no misgivings ! And at the same time the 
crackers, which the Chinese burn at every 
departure to drive away the evil spirits, were 
exploding with mad noise. But the evil 
spirits even then filled the whole land, and, 
lurking invisible, were biding their time, and 
none of those who stood there felt their 
presence. For fate ever strikes blind whom 
it is willed to destroy. 

And you, who were perhaps the only one to 
guess and see — where are you, dear friend ? 
That is the most unbearable thought of all 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 253 

and I imagine you surrounded by ever new 
dangers ! 

When shall we know? . . . or . . . Shall 
we never know ? 


LETTER XLVII 

New York, 25 th June 1900. 
My diary is my one consolation. I lose 
myself in it, living once more through the 
past and forgetting for a while the tormenting 
present. I can understand old people when 
they speak about the great joy of meeting 
people who knew them when they were young. 
My diary is somebody who has known me 
for a long time and in whom I find my own 
self again. And more than that, it is some- 
body who has known you, and I linger long 
over those pages in which I find something 
about you. 

To-day I have been reading about a morning 
on which you came to fetch me to take me to 
shops in the Chinese town to help me with 
some purchases for our little house. My diary 


254 


THE LETTERS 


contains only a few words, but they brought 
it all back vividly. I wonder if you too still 
remember it ? 

It was winter. 

We passed through the heavy frowning 
gateway of the Tartar town and then crossed 
the Beggars’ Bridge, edging our way between 
the long rows of camels, the throng of reck- 
lessly driven blue carts and a crowd of strange- 
looking human beings : Mongols in broad- 
brimmed fur caps and thick ochre or copper- 
coloured coats ; Chinamen shivering under 
their many wadded garments, their hands 
hidden under long sleeves, and wearing on 
their heads pointed red bashliks tied tightly 
round the throat. Others had their ears 
covered by small fur cases ; one could call out 
loudly to them, but they did not hear any- 
thing, and were constantly being knocked 
against by carts and riders. Those were the 
well-to-do who could afford to protect them- 
selves against the cold. But on the Beggars’ 
Bridge gruesome figures were crowding be- 
tween the small stalls and open cook-shops. 
Some were half-naked, and the fleshless bodies 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 255 

were trembling with cold. We saw haggard 
faces, blue lips, purplish half-frozen limbs, 
eyes staring as in madness, hideous sores, 
wild heads on whom the hair formed a tangled, 
felt-like mass. Scarcely could these creatures 
be called human beings in their filth and 
abject degeneracy. And many were quite 
young. Children who somewhere had a 
mother ! And the misery of these many lives, 
which had better never been lived, was so 
horrible because one saw so clearly its utter 
hopelessness. Surrounded by the beggars, we 
stopped in front of one of the mean eating- 
houses, where nameless queer-smelling food 
was sold in ancient cracked and broken porce- 
lain bowls, which had been ingeniously mended 
with wire. The beggars looked ravenously 
at the big pan by the open fire, in which offal, 
shaped into balls, was fried in scalding grease. 
The hot bluish vapour rose up into the cold 
winter air, and the poor greedily drew in the 
smell of burning fat and crowded closely 
round the fire. In their life’s Hell a warm 
meal near the fire of the cook-shop appeared 
as the highest luxury life can offer! You 


256 


THE LETTERS 


ordered food for them all, and remained to see 
that they got it. All the beggars of Peking 
were your special prot£g£s. How often have 
I not seen you surrounded by that strangest 
of all crowds which we used to call your 
guard ! 

I asked you about some of the most 
strikingly awful figures ; you knew them all 
and said : ‘ Even amongst these poor outlaws, 
who seem deprived of all human rights, there 
still exist subjects for legal contests, for each 
one is allowed to beg for alms only in certain 
streets. They form a guild, at the head of 
which an imperial prince stands to whom they 
must deliver a yearly tribute — for nothing on 
earth is more ruthlessly exploited than misery 
which cannot defend itself.’ 

From the Beggars’ Bridge we turned to the 
right into one of the small streets. I don’t 
know if it came from the spectacle of all the 
wretchedness we had seen, but I remember 
that we talked about the small amount of 
happiness to be found on earth, and that I 
said : ‘ And the little which there is, we never 
seem able to look straight in the face. We 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 257 

always see happiness in profile, looking back 
into the past or away into the future/ 

Then you murmured under your breath, 
‘Would it really not be possible for once to 
look happiness boldly in the face? ’ 

The sound of your voice seemed to have 
suddenly grown strange to me. It trembled 
as if you could scarcely breathe in the icy air. 
Your low words contained a question. 

But I dared not answer — I feared the 
trembling of my own voice. 

I only shook my head in silence. 

The wind came tearing round the street 
corners. It cut like a cruel weapon. The 
ground was hard frozen. The winter sky was 
hanging low, heavily laden with snow. It 
seemed as if some ancient evil were brooding 
over the whole world. Shivering, I suddenly 
became conscious of the intense cold. As if 
flying before ghosts, we both hurried onward. 
Neither of us spoke any more. 


R 


258 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER XLVIII 

New York, 26 th June 1900. 

A FEW days ago we read that Hofer on his 
way back from Europe had reached Shanghai 
— Hofer, whose warnings nobody in Europe 
believed. I telegraphed to him, asking if he 
knew where you were, for I could not bear 
the suspense any longer. And I have just 
received his answer : ‘ According to latest 
news he must have reached Peking im- 
mediately before beginning of siege.’ 

And so there is not even the small hope 
that you might be in some safe hiding-place 
in the interior of China ! I had clung to this 
belief during the last days. The more alarm- 
ing the news about Peking grew, the more 
I took it for granted that you could not be 
there. I tried to convince myself that it was 
out of the question. I would not admit the 
mere possibility. 

And now you are there after all ! All the 
gruesome tidings which we read day by day 
with growing horror, have become living 
realities, have turned into pictures that per- 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 259 


petually haunt me, since I know that you 
are imprisoned in that town of many suffer- 
ings. Every single being waiting for relief 
behind those grim walls must inspire pity 
even to the veriest strangers — but what is 
that in comparison to the agonised despair 
which tears my heart thinking of you — of 
you ! 

And not to be able to do anything when 
I would so gladly give my own life; when 
it would be bliss at least to share your suffer- 
ing! And in the midst of this torture I 
suddenly stand still as in awe before my 
own heart’s revelation, asking in bewildered 
wonder : ‘ Can this be ? Can it really be I ? ’ 


LETTER XLIX 

New York, 27 th June 1900. 
SINCE when did I know what you have 
come to be in my poor life which was blasted 
in a storm at dawn ? Did I divine it already 
in Peking? Have I only now gradually dis- 
covered it? I could not tell. It seems to 
me as if it never could have been otherwise. 


26 o 


THE LETTERS 


We never spoke about it — yet now I know 
that we both have always known it. So much 
rose between us fettering and separating us. 
Why then speak ? It seems as if a certain shy- 
ness prevented us from expressing our deepest 
feelings. We are much more eloquent with 
our pens, for we feel more free and alone, 
as if nobody could hear what we confide 
silently to the paper. 

But Destiny, through the power of out- 
ward events has forced me to see clearly into 
my own self ; the anxiety of these days has 
torn the veil. 

When I think of my young years, which 
ought to be life’s happiest ones, I have only 
the remembrance of a burden which was 
beyond my strength. But I went on carry- 
ing it because I could not help it, for I 
was not weak in the faculty of enduring, 
only much too weak and too afraid of publicity 
to take my destiny into my hands and shape 
it according to my own wishes. I bore it as 
it was. 

I have known some women of the Ueber - 
mensch type, who simply threw off whatever 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 261 


hindered them in the free development of 
their own personality, which was the idol 
before which all had to give way — who were 
strong enough to bear their own fate. I also 
have known women who led two distinct 
lives ; one open to the eyes of all the world, 
cold, grey, and of infinite dreariness, and 
another hidden existence, one of sweet secrecy, 
of stolen happiness which had to make up for 
the emptiness of the other. 

I have wondered at both kinds of women, 
and perhaps have I even envied them a 
little; but I could not have imitated either 
of them — it would have been against my own 
inner nature. 

I have waited, as so many women do whose 
whole life is spent in waiting. 

The changes in my life have always come 
through outward circumstances. 

After years, during which golden youth fled, 
I was partly, and without my own interference, 
relieved of the all too heavy burden. But 
it had left its mark upon me. I remained 
bowed down like a tree which for years has 
had to bend before the fierce blast of the 


262 


THE LETTERS 


north winds. I had lost all buoyancy. Hope- 
lessly I looked around me. What could 
life yet contain ? 

Years of wandering followed, bringing out- 
ward change, and in me everything grew 
silent. I took it to be death’s silence, which 
to many comes long before death itself. 

I thought that life’s struggle was ended, 
and without aim or wishes I lived on dream- 
ing. The days passed by me like things seen 
dimly in a fog. I felt nothing but a great 
weariness like all those who are only waiting 
for the end. 

Thus I arrived in Peking. 

Then you came. 

How am I to describe what grew to be 
unsought, and unconsciously, what I never 
dared touch, what I would not see. We who 
have suffered much, dread lighting up the 
obscure corners of our heart. We quickly 
pass by those hiding-places of old and new 
sorrows, like children who run fast through 
a dark room. Life has taught us the fear of 
the unknown. We know that it mostly means 
but new woe. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 263 

I had grown faint-hearted, and I did not 
want to see that after all we have gone 
through, we yet remain the bearers of many 
possibilities which slumber in us, and only wait 
for some great force to call them into life. 

I deemed that my day was drawing to its 
close, and it has grown light once more. Is 
it a kind and warming sun which will shine 
on the evening, making it more golden than 
the whole weary day has ever been, or is it 
the dazzling flash of lightning which tears 
the dark clouds and once more discloses the 
devastated land in a lurid glare? I cannot 
tell. I do not know what heavenly signs 
stand above us and I cannot lift the future’s 
veil, but the great force which awakens what 
is hidden and slumbering has come to me 
with sorrow and anxiety ; it presses the pen 
into my hand and dictates words which would 
have forever remained unwritten, were it not 
for that infinite, unceasing anxiety about you — 
about you. 

The force of Destiny, the misery of these 
days, have taught me to read into my soul. 
To-day I know what you are to me. 


264 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER L 

New York, 29 th June 1900. 
The Seymour relief column has returned to 
Tientsin. It has never reached Peking. All 
hope that it might after all have got there 
was in vain. Nothing, nothing is known 
about the fate of Peking — and I only know 
that you are there. 

It is rumoured that Chinese Viceroys in 
the southern provinces have received telegrams 
saying that on the 25th of June the Legations 
were still holding out. And the whole world 
submits to this, that the Chinese officials in 
Shanghai receive regular news about what is 
going on in Peking, but that the foreigners 
are not allowed to get a single telegram. 
Why is not the telegraph Taotai Sheng 
arrested and told : ‘ Within four days all 
governments must receive cipher messages 
from their representatives or you will lose 
your head.’ That would help quick enough. 

But no one ever has dared to act resolutely 
against big Mandarins. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 265 


LETTER LI 

New York, yd July 1900. 
To-DAY a telegram says that a messenger of 
Sir Robert Hart’s has arrived from Peking in 
Tientsin. He brought a bit of paper dated 
June 25th, which contains these few words: 
‘Our position is desperate. The foreigners 
have all assembled in the British Legation, 
where they are under constant fire.’ Oh, and 
to know that you are one of them ! 

Is there any one in the whole world who 
can feel the same despair as I ? And the 
indignation to find in the same paper which 
contains this heart-rending cry of distress, 
subtle discussions of the question whether we 
are at war with China or not, as well as declara- 
tions of that old inhabitant and connoisseur 

of Peking, Mr. who writes : ‘ Prince Tuan 

cannot possibly have acted as we are being 
told, for although his manners are gruff, he is 
honest and good-hearted.’ I really believe that 
there exist even now people who are proud to 
have known such a Chinese Prince. 

Oh, the everlasting snobbery of the world ! 


266 


THE LETTERS 


LETTER LII 

New York, 6 th July 1900. 
That horrible news in the papers ! A 
perfect martyrdom it is to read it. The 
most gruesome details of the foreigners’ last 
fight in Peking, which by some mysterious 
way have leaked out, are printed in huge type 
as headings. The sufferings of those un- 
fortunate victims are used for a speculation 
which reckons on the general greed for all 
that is sensational ; but not only the in- 
different see it — also those whom it crushes 
to the very roots of their being. They see all 
those ghastly pictures before their inner eyes 
night and day — night and day. Will nothing 
ever wipe them out? 

And they must also read that the Legations 
have been given up for lost by the world. It 
is useless, we are told, to risk any further 
lives in the attempt to help them, as all must 
be over anyhow. It is even suggested to 
abandon Tientsin for the present. In the 
autumn, when the heat and the rains are over, 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 26 ; 

a fine punitive expedition, organised on a 
great scale, is to start for Peking. 

What do we care about punishments, we 
who are trembling for our dearest ones on 
earth ! We want them to be saved ! 

LETTER LI 1 1 

New York, 12 th July 1900. 
Two utter strangers came to see me to-day, 
an old man and an old woman. They told 
me that one of their sons had been amongst 
the besieged at Peking, and that was suffi- 
cient for me. The strange people suddenly 
seemed to be of my own kin. But they invari- 
ably said, ‘We had a son/ never ‘we have. 
They are quite convinced that all is ended 
behind the high walls, and that none there is 
alive any more. They both had the pathetic 
resignation of old people who have lost one 
after the other all those whom they loved, 
until at last sorrow appears to be the only 
natural thing on earth. The old woman had 
sewn some new crape on her well-worn black 
dress, which seemed to have grown threadbare 


268 


THE LETTERS 


in a long series of mournings. They had 
heard somehow that we have been in Peking, 
and they longed to speak with us and find 
out if we had perhaps known their son. They 
did not expect any encouragement. They 
were quite hopeless. And this was the most 
awful for me, to see others give up their dearest 
as irretrievably lost. My own determination 
to go on hoping against hope suddenly seemed 
almost childish. All the arguments with 
which I daily strive to cheer myself up a little 
showed so pitiably weak. 

To-day the papers again say with full 
conviction that not one of the foreigners in 
Peking is alive at this hour. The two old 
people have patiently accepted it. They will 
go on further through life wearing yet more 
mourning. — But I cannot — no, my God, I 
cannot ! 

And if every one says that all is hopelessly 
over — if the bells ring for funeral services, I can- 
not believe it — I will not — I will go on writing 
to you, because I cannot do otherwise — because 
it seems to me as if these lines formed the last 
bridge between us. If I stopped writing to 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 269 

you I should feel as if I acquiesced in the 
horrible doom, as if I had given you up: but 
thus I fancy to hold you and force you to 
remain, because I still have so much, so very 
much to tell you. The years we have spent 
together constantly pass in a long succession 
of pictures before my mind. I should like to 
describe each one to you, and every sentence 
would begin, ‘ Do you remember?’ ‘Do you 
still know?’ Oh yes, you do know, you do 
remember — for those years were to you what 
they are to me — that for which one has been 
waiting from the beginning, what one never 
forgets, what in the last hour will rise before 
our eyes as the only thing which was worth 
living for. 


LETTER LIV 

Bay View, i 6 th July 1900. 
DURING these last weeks I have been ill a 
great deal. It seems as if all strength were 
gradually leaving me. Every morning I feel 
that my small stock of power of resistance 
has again diminished a little. The doctor 


270 


THE LETTERS 


said that it came from the heat in town and 
that sea air would do me good. I know 
better. The anxiety, which ceases neither 
day nor night, is wearing me out, and only 
that which would be a miracle could help me. 

But my brother wanted so much to try to 
do something for me, for whom there is nothing 
that can be done, that I did as he wished and 
came with him to this seaside place. 

I am so weary, so hopeless. Why should 
I do anything, or why not do it. What can 
yet be of any consequence if this one thing 
was allowed to be. Nothing can matter after 
that. 

But the one thing which I cannot stand is 
when well-meaning people say to me: ‘ How 
glad you must feel not to be in Peking ! * or, 
‘It really seems a divine dispensation that you 
left a few months previous to these events ! ’ 

Oh no, I am not glad to be away! Waking 
and dreaming I only have the one wish to 
be in Peking, since I know that you are 
there. Then at least we should be together — 
and nothing I might have to suffer would 
matter if only I were with you. All would seem 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 271 


easier to bear than this suspense. And if it 
came to the worst and no relief were possible? 
Well, even then ; for we should not let those 
savage brutes catch us alive, and in the last 
look of my eyes you would still read happiness 
and gratitude, gratitude for life and death, for 
all that you have given me. 

And why should it be a divine dispensation 
that I am saved, when perhaps many women 
and children have perished in such a cruel 
way ? They were as innocent as I am of the 
blind delusion which alone rendered all this 
horror possible. 

To think of all that which innocent beings 
must have endured in Peking during the last 
weeks and of all that will yet follow. From 
all countries ships are sailing towards the Far 
East ; they are filled with men who a few days 
ago perhaps only knew about China that the 
men there wear pigtails, and that the women 
totter about on small feet. These Cossacks 
and Frenchmen, English and Italians, Germans, 
Americans, Japanese, and even sons of Hindu- 
stan — why and for what are they setting out? 
In a remote corner of the world they will meet 


272 


THE LETTERS 


yellow men, who in their turn never have heard 
about them ; thousands of miles separated 
them till now, and they could be neither friends 
nor foes, for they did not even know of each 
other’s existence. Yet now one will try to kill 
the other, and that will be called splendid and 
patriotic. 

How devoid of sense it all does seem ! 

Many who are starting now, young and 
healthy, will never return, sickness more than 
bullets will mow them down. Others will 
return, but how? And all to atone for the 
wrongs of others ! 

And when one thinks of the Chinese, of 
those poor unknown. What heart-rending 
misery will be endured by them. But there 
also the real evil-doers will not have to bear it, 
but those again who cannot defend themselves 
— that class of human beings whose many 
thousands of years old sufferings form in all 
countries a kind of broad basis on which all 
that is built up by which we pride ourselves 
to have risen so high. 

Those who set out to-day will join that 
greatest of all fleets which sails in endless 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 273 


ship-lines towards veiled distance and unknown 
ports ; a fleet which is as old as human history, 
whose beginning reaches back into misty 
primal ages, which has gone on growing ever 
since the days of the old Egyptians, Persians, 
and Greeks, and which will never end. It is 
manned with grey figures of misery, with the 
numberless, the nameless, who since all times 
have borne the wrong of the few ! 

And all is divine dispensation. 

LETTER LV 

Bay View, 19 th July 1900. 
When my brother comes back from New 
York in the afternoon I always go to meet 
him, hoping every time that he is at last 
bringing the miraculous news, but every time 
I see him already from afar shaking his head — 
no news — no news. Then he asks me how I 
spent the day, and when I give him daily the 
same answer, that I have been writing to you, 
he says no word, but I can see the thought in 
his eyes, ‘ What for ? ’ But he never contradicts 
me and lets me do just as I please — as one 
S 


2;4 


THE LETTERS 


does with the hopelessly sick, whom one would 
fain give some hours of happy delusion. 

LETTER LVI 

Bay View, 20 th July 1900. 
MUCH that I thought dead wakes up in these 
days. Old superstitious practices are remem- 
bered which I had discarded during all the 
time when the world seemed to contain 
nothing that was worth asking for. I have 
even fallen back into bargaining with God. 
How long ago it seems that I have not 
troubled the old patriarchal merchant prince 
with the long, flowing, silvery beard, but to-day 
I have entreated him passionately : ‘ Only let 
him live, let him be saved, and in exchange I 
will yield up everything. I will never see him 
again, never hear his voice, never more hold 
his hand — but let him live, let him be saved.’ 

I don’t know if my prayer has been heard, 
and yet it ought to be granted, for it is quite 
an Old Testament bargain. I offer my life, 
my happiness, my everything to save another 
— such contracts, it is said, were made of old 1 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 275 


LETTER LVII 

Bay View, 21 st July 1900. 
YESTERDAY we still read a horrible descrip- 
tion of the end of all foreigners in Peking, 
and to-day Wu Ting Fang has brought to the 
Foreign Office in Washington a cipher telegram 
from the United States Minister at Peking. 

It is printed in all the papers: ‘In British 
Legation under continual shot and shell from 
Chinese troops. Quick relief alone can pre- 
vent general massacre.’ 

Since several days Wu has been promising 
to establish direct communication with Mr. 
Conger, and nobody believed him. This 
talkative busybody resembled too much la 
mouche du coche in the fable ; but never mind 
whatever else he may have invented in his 
flowery babu English, if only this one tiding is 
true, for it is the first ray of hope again given 
us. It is a very faint one indeed — but still we 
may hope again. Scarcely credible does it 
sound, but the poor brave people are really 
still holding out — and they must be saved — 
they must. 


2/6 


THE LETTERS 


I should like to beseech the whole world for 
pity’s sake to make haste that they may not 
perish in the last hour. Think of those unfor- 
tunates waiting beyond the grey walls, listening 
if they can hear the rumbling tread of their 
approaching liberators. Think also of the 
unfortunates who in all countries are waiting 
with yearning hearts for the first sounds of 
beloved voices which they thought never to 
hear again. 

Make haste — make haste ! 


LETTER LVIII 

Bay View, 28 th July 1900. 
It seems almost as if the world would not 
have it be true ! In Europe they now stick to 
the Peking massacre with the same obstinacy 
as they formerly believed in the insignificance 
of the Boxer rising. The rebels were said to 
be mere riff-raff, armed only with scythes. One 
downpour of rain would surely disperse them. 
Now no words are terrible enough to describe 
them. A few weeks ago guards of thirty men 
were considered amply sufficient for each Lega- 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 277 

tion ; to-day sixty thousand men are said to 
be required for the advance from Tientsin to 
Peking. The reports coming from Chinese 
Viceroys, which grow daily more numerous, 
and which affirm that the foreigners are still 
alive, is considered as attempts at drawing a 
new relief column into some horrible ambush. 
And in the meantime the days are passing, 
and nothing is being done! 

And you all are waiting ! What must you 
not feel at seeing yourselves thus abandoned 
by the world, what indignation and despair? 

Oh, the horror, the shame, if relief were to 
come too late ! 


LETTER LIX 

Bay View, 6 th August 1900. 
At last the dawdling seems to be over. The 
troops have started from Tientsin, and hourly 
my thoughts follow them on their march across 
the land between Tientsin and Peking. Just 
four years ago I saw it for the first time, with 
its green Kauliang fields and the brown Pei-ho, 
on which the big, lumbersome boats, set with 


278 


THE LETTERS 


huge sails, were slowly gliding and following 
the river’s many windings. In those days the 
railway did not yet exist. To-day it does not 
exist any more. We had to travel in house- 
boats, and I thought those four hot days a 
long, weary journey, with the monotonous 
accompaniment of the coolies’ rhythmical chant 
as they pulled the boats along from the muddy 
banks when the breeze went out, and the halts 
in the evening when thousands of locusts and 
crickets would chirp the whole night through. 
But no presentiment told me that I was even 
then slowly journeying to meet fate. 

Then also I heard for the first time all the 
names which to-day fill the papers, Ho-hsi-wu, 
Peitsang, Yang-tsung; and we stopped at 
those conglomerations of miserable grey huts, 
which now have become historical places 
giving their names to battles. Many are 
they now lying for their last rest in those 
same down-trodden Kauliang fields, and per- 
haps they also have started without any pre- 
sentiment, not knowing towards what goal 
they were journeying. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 279 


LETTER LX 

Bay View, io th August 1900. 
Sometimes I seem to be hearing your voice 
quite distinctly. Then I tremble, my breath 
stops, and I can feel my heart beating in loud, 
irregular thumps, and I shut my eyes in 
indescribable joy. 

Soon, soon it must be. I shall not heed 
your words at first. I shall only drink the 
dear sound. How long ago it is ! Do you 
remember? The last time I heard your voice 
was on the way from Peking to the station 
Ma Chia Pu. You were riding beside my 
sedan-chair, and you bent down in your saddle 
to talk to me. But we only filled those last 
minutes with indifferent little phrases, and 
to-day I know that our hearts were heavy 
unto bursting, and that one single word might 
have shattered all our bravely kept up com- 
posure — and at last we both were silent for 
fear of breaking down. Since then, how often 
have I not remembered those last moments, 
and fancied to be again sitting in the train 
waving my hand to you from the window 


28 o 


THE LETTERS 


as we left you standing there at the small 
station ? 

But in a few days the horrible suspense and 
separation must be over. The relief force must 
soon reach Peking. Then you must come to 
me on the fastest boat, and on the shortest 
road, for I can bear it no longer. 

And what can old Chinese manuscripts 
matter to you ? May they all be destroyed ! 
I give you instead my whole heart to read, 
and what is written there is old also, but it is 
not difficult to decipher, and it seems to me 
such a wonderful discovery. 

What is China to you? Let the North be 
devoured with vodka , and the South with beer, 
and let the younger hungry clamourers also 
pick up a little meal out of the crumbs that 
fall from the table of the older and more 
experienced world-robbers — let them — what 
does it matter to us? And you will see 
nothing really great will come of it all. The 
present indignation and all the great resolu- 
tions will just dwindle down ; here one can 
already hear the daily wish to be well out 
of it. In a few months we shall hear again 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 281 


the same old talk about the traditions of 
unalterable friendship for China, and civilisa- 
tion will again delight in pressing the Dowager 
Empress’s hand, and in the meantime the 
underground work for another, perhaps more 
horrible, upheaval will be going on unheeded, 
for in truth the world is but a sorry scholar, 
and slow to learn from facts, but quick to 
forget them. But what does it all matter to 
us? If only you come back soon. Let it be 
China for the Chinese, or for any one else, if 
only China gives you back to me. 

LETTER LX I 

Bay View, 12 th August 1900. 
Old letters of the besieged now gradually 
arrive at Tientsin, and all the papers reproduce 
them in their telegrams. They were brought 
by messengers, Chinese Christians, who man- 
aged to make their escape from Peking 
through the sluices or dressed up as Boxers. 
Those short sentences are perfect wails of dis- 
tress, and they always contain the same en- 
treaty — ‘Quick, help, or it will otherwise be 


282 


THE LETTERS 


too late!’ Some of these messages mention 
for how many days the supplies of food can 
be made to last — and alas ! the time has already 
expired. 

Then there is one number which these 
letters all contain — that of the dead. Oh, how 
it grows with each new letter, this number of 
those for whom all help will come too late. 
Names are now given, and the terror is ever 
present — who has already been counted out 
in that list? Whom will fate yet strike? 

It is said here that the relief column can 
reach Peking on the 14th at the earliest. The 
whole world is astonished at their quick ad- 
vance ; but to my impatience it seems so slow. 
Could I but give them wings ! 

I am filled with such nameless terror and 
apprehension of these last days and hours ! 

LETTER LXII 

Bay View, 13th August 1900. 
To-night I woke up fancying that I was 
back in Peking. In my sleep I must have 
heard some noise which my dreams converted 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 283 

into the clicking against each other of two 
pieces of bamboo with which the Chinese 
watchmen accompany their rounds. How 
often have I listened to this sound, faint at 
first, then stronger, then dying away — tac, tac, 
tac ! During hot midsummer nights, when the 
mosquitoes were buzzing against the curtain, 
and the whole earth seemed to exhale the 
heat which it had been drawing in during 
the day, that regular sound formed the dull 
and monotonous accompaniment to all my 
confused and drowsy thoughts. And in the 
cold winter nights in Peking when the snow 
covered the old grey town, the high walls 
and the infinite space outside, when the whole 
living world seemed to have vanished into 
deep stillness, then have I often heard in the 
great silence this sound, which seemed as an 
everlasting leitmotiv : tac, tac, tac — joy, pain, 
death ; joy, pain, death ! 

But I particularly remember some spring 
nights, when I was lying very sick at Peking, 
and life’s spark seemed but a flickering will- 
o’-the-wisp hovering between me and the 
great grey unknown, not knowing whether 


284 


THE LETTERS 


to stay or to go. The windows were wide 
open, and from the courtyard the smell of 
white lilac floated into my room : from my 
bed I could see into the starry sky. A feeling 
of great weakness crept over me, and at the 
same time I felt so free and light, as if I 
were soaring up quite high into the deep 
night blue where the stars were beckoning; 
and from the earth, which was fast vanishing 
under me, there arose faintly those same 
ancient words of Destiny: joy, pain, death; 
joy, pain, death ! 

To-night in my dreams I have again heard 
that well-known sound, and it vibrates again 
and again in my mind, but I can only make out 
the one word, ‘dead, dead, dead/ An inde- 
scribable anxiety has taken hold of me, a burn- 
ing wish to fly to you, and a perfect despair 
at having to remain here waiting, waiting. 

I want to help and to save, and then I hear 
again the word, ‘dead, dead, dead/ I am 
full of infinite yearning and longing for you, 
and it seems to me as if just to-day I must 
tell you a thousand endearing words, and 
shield you, and keep you. But why to-day 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 285 


this trembling fear, this anxiety which does 
not leave for a minute, which drives me from 
the house to the beach and from the beach 
back to the house, which grows and grows 
even now whilst I am writing to you ? Why to- 
day when relief must be so close to you ? And 
always the same sound that I heard already 
in the night — ‘ tac, tac, tac.’ It pursues me. I 
will not hear it, and yet I must. I hold my 
ears, then I hear my veins throbbing ‘tac, tac, 
tac.’ It booms like the ringing of bells, it 
clicks like fast, regular shooting, ‘tac, tac, 
tac.’ And I wonder, What is it that this sound 
so obstinately wants to tell me ? I listen and 
listen. Now it has grown quite weak, as if 
from some far distance the last beatings of a 
dying heart came faintly to me . . . dead, dead, 
dead. . . . 

Oh, what is it? What can it mean ? 


LETTER LXIII 

Bay View, ijth August 1900. 
At last! at last! Now it is indeed true! 
The first telegram from the Legation is 


286 


THE LETTERS 


published in the papers. Saved, truly saved ! 
I keep repeating the blessed word. Since I 
read this news I don’t know what I am doing 
or saying, whether I am laughing or weeping ! 
It seems incredible that for once hope, the 
ensnarer, was right and despair wrong ! And 
in the joy of my heart, which exults, and then 
again tremblingly asks, ‘Is it true? Is it 
true?’ In the first moments of this newly 
bestowed life, it seems to me that you are 
quite near by me and that we are rejoicing 
together. It is impossible that such ecstasy 
could fill me without your knowing it. Surely 
you know it all ! I can feel your presence 
quite distinctly here close to me, although my 
eyes, dim yet with tears, cannot discern it. 

Soon, soon we shall really see each other 
again ! There will come a beautiful summer 
evening, and we shall sit together on a golden 
beach, and we shall look out on the endless 
sea which has fought through days of tempest 
until it has found peace at last; and such a 
delight at being again together will fill us, that 
no language ever found the v/ord for it, that we 
shall scarcely dare to breathe, that we shall 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 287 

wish seconds to extend into eternities. Yes, 
that, all that shall be. 

LETTER LXIV 

Bay View, i Zth August 1900. 
As I woke up this morning the sun was 
shining into my room, and blinking, I had 
first to get accustomed to this great radiancy. 
Half-asleep, yet I had the impression that 
something wonderful was awaiting me. I 
had that sensation for the last time as a child, 
when I awoke on Christmas morning and 
remembered, still in a half-dream, that, in 
the drawing-room, there were the tree and 
all the presents of the night before. But 
not only outside was the sun shining to-day, 
in my own self everything was glistening with 
happiness. And to this great radiancy I also 
had to get accustomed, blinking at first, after 
a long night of care and anxiety. 

The world is glorious, the world is good 
— for are you not living ! What is it that they 
talk about earth’s valley of tears? It is a 
flowering garden, because you live. All is to 


288 


THE LETTERS 


be sorrow and suffering? Oh, I know of such 
deep ecstasies of joy — for you have been saved. 
I believe I am only now awakening to the 
sight of the world as it really is— my world 
— as I see it. The other people go about as 
if nothing particular had happened — and yet is 
all new and different from heretofore. Every- 
thing has suddenly got a meaning for me — 
for you are saved, you live, you must live ! 

I vainly search for words to express what I 
feel, and I can only repeat what that great 
master of word and song has said : ‘ Winter- 
stiirme wichen dem Wonnemond! They keep 
ringing in my ears, those glorious words. I 
know that some people would smile at this — 
you in Peking, I here on the Atlantic’s shore 
and Wonnemond ? But still these words alone 
can describe this rapture of joy and this bound- 
less gratitude. 

If a God has created mankind, as children 
have been taught for centuries, then thanks 
everlasting be to Him who made you. If 
for eternal ages unconsciously willing minute 
cells, following some dark necessity, joined so 
that at last man grew to be, then thanks to the 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 289 

infinitesimal which formed you. My God’s 
gift — my world’s wonder! What do names 
and creeds matter ? All we know is but feeling 
— W inters tiirme wichen dent Wonnemond. 


LETTER LXV 

Bay View, igtk August 1900. 
As soon as the first absolutely trustworthy 
tidings came I telegraphed to you to ask you 
for news, for I must hear it from yourself that 
you are saved, I must have my own telegram 
from you — one word of bliss all to myself in 
the great concert of joy that is ringing through 
the world. 

Now I wait, oh, how I wait for the first 
message from you which will reach me after 
that long, long time. 

I will only mail this letter when I shall have 
received your telegram — for I daresay I shall 
not have to send it to Peking at all. Surely 
you will leave at once. What could hinder 
you when I call you? And I do call you 
with such longing, that you must hear it, 
T 


290 


THE LETTERS 


wherever you are, and through the thickest 
of Chinese walls. 


20 th August 1900 . 

I am so impatient. I can scarcely stand the 
waiting for your telegram any longer. My 
brother tries to quiet me by explaining that 
at present telegrams take much more time 
than usual to reach Peking. I understand that 
it cannot be otherwise, and surely many people 
are waiting just as anxiously as I do, and 
they also must have patience — and then I 
nevertheless keep thinking that an exception 
could be made for this one little telegram to 
let it pass quickly, for it carries so much happi- 
ness that it ought to take precedence over 
everything else in the world. 


21 st August 1900 . 

I feel absolutely certain that I shall get 
news from you to-day, then I shall im- 
mediately mail my letter. It is to tell 
you . . . 

At first the words seemed but an empty 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 291 


sound. They meant nothing. Only quite 
slowly have I understood them. The sea 
still roars and the waves still beat against 
the shore — just as in the dim time before I 
had heard the words. He will never more 
hear the sea’s roaring. Do they mean that 
when they say that he is dead ? The letter 
to him lies unfinished before me. . . . He 
will never read it. Is that their meaning 
when they say he is dead? Does it signify 
that nothing from me can ever reach him 
any more? That for him the whole world 
is no more because he is no more? Does it 
mean that ? 

I always hear the same words — He is no 
more. At first I did not understand it, now it 
is the only thing I remember. Those words 
fill the world — all else seems to have vanished. 

If at least I could have seen him once 
more! If I had been with him at the last. 
To think that he was alone then — that he 
died quite alone. I measure his loneliness 
by my own intense solitude, his misery by 
my wretchedness. 


292 THE LETTERS 

During years he has surrounded me with 
infinite care and kindness. He has loved me 
— only now do I realise how much — for then 
I dared not think of it — I had to pass by him 
— when he was giving me his whole life. 

Oh, if there were at least one hour of my 
life of which I now could say, ‘ That I gave to 
him entirely, that was so wholly his that 
with his last thoughts he must surely have 
remembered it.’ 

Oh that I myself possessed one such 
remembrance. 

But I could be nothing to him. Even in 
his last hour I was not near him. 

He had to die alone. 

If at least I had been able to say only once 
to him, ‘ I have loved you all the time, and 
surely, surely you knew it all along — better 
even than 1/ Oh that I were lying by him 
deep down in the earth. 

I see nothing but an endless field covered 
with ruins — and a road that leads nowhere. — 
That was my life. 

The memories of many former lives seem to 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 293 

rise up before me, and in all of them he was 
there and I ; and we were always searching 
one another. But have we ever found? Or 
was it always only a wondering recognition 
and then the same doom of separation ? 

Weary, weary am I, as if I were carrying 
the burden of endless former suffering. I 
should like to sleep soundly without dreams 
and to forget that I ever have been. Oh 
that there might be a long time of deep 
rest and oblivion between the moment when 
we are allowed to go and the time when we 
shall be forced to return once more on the 
eternally revolving wheel. 

How slowly the hours seem to be creeping 
in the long, terrible nights of torment, with 
their perpetual brooding. If it could not have 
been hindered, would I had remained with him. 
Now I understand why we were to leave. He 
wanted to save me, for he surely even then 
had many forebodings. That was why he 
pressed my brother to go to New York. 

But what are world and life to me without 
you? And even if you would not, you will 


294 


THE LETTERS 


still for ever draw me after you. Invisible, in- 
dissoluble ties chain us together since eternal 
ages, and I follow you. Often I scarcely 
know if I am still here ; that is my only 
consolation. Since I am separated from you 
I only seemed to live here, but in reality I 
was elsewhere — with you — in that town where 
we were together during your life and in 
further lands. Wherever you have been my 
thoughts have accompanied you. In all your 
travels they were with you ; through my long- 
ing I have so completely lived near you that 
I know places where I yet have never been. 
With you I have marched through endless 
plains ; by your side I have crossed wild 
rocky mountain passes ; together we have 
climbed steep peaks, and in the gloom of 
legendary temples I have stood near you, 
listening with you to the dark sayings of 
ancient wisdom. All that was my real life, 
and there with you was my true self. 

Now you have gone further and further 
yet into the immeasurable distance. But even 
there I will follow you. In all ages since life 
and will existed, I must have thus followed 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 295 

you. And if your road leads through the 
infinities of space to unknown worlds, to other 
moons and suns — through deepest night and 
white hot glare — yet I will follow you. I 
could not do otherwise. 

I fancied I had been lying here for many 
weeks, but they say it is only a few days. 
Space and time seem to vanish before me. 
The minutes contain such endless sorrow, such 
unbearable yearning that I struggle through 
them wearily, as if they were eternities. 
Things of the past seem so near that I stretch 
out my hand to touch them . . . but the 
hand itself melts away. . . . The end of my 
bed sinks into a dim fog. ... I cannot see 
myself any more. . e . My body seems to 
have changed into the whole world . . . and 
it is throbbing with the whole world’s woe. 

I can scarcely hold the pen. . . . All gets 
blurred . . . and all hurts. . . . Always worse 
and worse. I feel cold. . . . Darkness is 
creeping over me — I fight against it — but, oh, 
the terror! But I will, I will die with my 
full consciousness. No fear— no agony ! The 


296 


THE LETTERS 


abyss — the horror! But now . . . Joy . • , 
Joy. . . . You ! 

Why have they awakened me once more? 
Why lengthen the torture, was it not yet 
enough ? I was sleeping already holding 
your hand. . . . All seemed done . . . and 
now? ... I don’t find you any more . . . 
Where? . . . Where was it? Waiting. , . , 
Always waiting. . . . 

And then? . , . Nothing! 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 297 


EPILOGUE 

My sister who wrote these letters, our friend 
who was to have received them, are both at 
rest. She lies here within the sound of the 
Atlantic’s roar, and he is buried in the distant 
Chinese earth. 

In May 1900 we returned from Berlin, 
where my brother-in-law had died, after having 
been suffering for years from an incurable 
mental disease. I had hoped that after the 
weary oppressive day, life might perhaps yet 
bring the consolation of a brighter evening 
to my sister. It seemed to me as if un- 
conscious of it herself, she was slowly reviving. 
But during the terrible weeks, when the whole 
civilised world was waiting in torturing sus- 
pense for news of the fate of the besieged 
foreigners in Peking, my sister was consumed 
by anxiety about our friend, and when the 
news of his death arrived, after we had already 


29B 


THE LETTERS 


firmly believed him to be saved, she pined 
away and died after a short time. 

Later on I went to China, and my sister’s 
letters were given to me. Our friend had 
never received them. He had had all his 
correspondence addressed to Shanghai, for 
his great exploration tour had been originally 
planned so as to bring him finally to Shanghai, 
and from that port he intended to sail home. 
But on his way he seems to have suddenly 
changed his route and decided to return to 
Peking, where he arrived just before the 
beginning of the siege of the Legations. He 
expected to find all his mail there, for on his 
way he had sent a telegraphic order to 
Shanghai to have everything forwarded to 
Peking, but the messenger whom he sent 
from some place in the interior to the next 
telegraphic station, which was many days 
distant, probably never reached his destina- 
tion owing to the disturbances which were 
already then rapidly spreading. At all events 
his telegrams, as I ascertained since, never 
got to Shanghai, and no letters were awaiting 
him at Peking. 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 299 

As soon as he arrived there he volunteered 
for service, and he was told off for the defence 
of the Su-wang-fu, where the three thousand 
Chinese Christian refugees had found shelter. 
His knowledge of the language, and the in- 
fluence which he somehow always managed 
to obtain over the natives, rendered him par- 
ticularly fit for this post. Much has been 
told to me since about his calmness and his 
utter fearlessness, which never left him in 
those weeks during which men had ample 
opportunity to show of what stuff they were 
made. 

He was a victim of the last hour. 

On the 13th of August, when the besieged 
already had positive news of the approach of 
the relief columns under generals Gaselee and 
Fukushima, the Chinese made a particularly 
fierce attack, as if they hoped to overwhelm 
yet that small force which had held out seven 
weeks. Ever since the early morning the 
bullets came flying over the barricades like 
hail. The attack against the Fu was especially 
hot. In the afternoon one of the Chinese 
refugees whom Col. Shiba had organised into 


300 


THE LETTERS 


a watch troop was wounded there. Our friend 
at once rushed forward to carry the wounded 
man out of the range of the bullets, but in the 
same moment he fell himself, mortally hit. 

In the evening they buried him. 

The next day the relief columns entered the 
town. 

Months passed after that before I arrived 
in Peking. Everything there reminded me 
of him and of her, although it was quite a 
different world which I found from the old 
Peking in which those two had lived. That 
has disappeared for ever. I have wandered 
a long time in the desolate town, and in the 
midst of all that devastation I have searched 
for memories and pictures of the past. But 
where once the ancient stone turtle stood and 
the wistaria bloomed, ruins and great heaps 
of wreckage were lying. Scarcely could one 
have named the place of our little house. 
Like a great weight the sorrow for what is 
irretrievably lost oppressed me. 

No trace of him or her. As if it all had 
never been. 

In the evening I sat a long while gazing at 


WHICH NEVER REACHED HIM 301 


my sister’s letters that were spread out before 
me. At first, I had thought of burning them. 
A little smoke which rises through the 
chimney and loses itself in space. 

A few sorrowful thoughts from some that 
are still left, but who soon will be gone too — 
and then a life’s trace is lost. But I could 
not do it The last that is left of those two 
are these letters. As I glanced through them 
I felt how they contained my sister’s real life, 
her own self that has been dear to many; I 
felt how times that are past arose once more 
before me ; I felt also how she who has gone 
seemed to come back to me, and with her, 
many memories of the wander-years we two 
have spent together. I could not burn these 
letters. I should have felt as if my sister’s 
life once more were wantonly destroyed ! 

I hesitated a long while and finally decided 
to publish Her letters which never reached 
Him as a memorial to both. I added to them 
some pages on which she had been writing 
yet in her last hours, and which I found after 
her death. Perhaps these letters will bring 
a greeting to some friends who have known 


302 


THE LETTERS 


those two in the old Peking; perhaps they 
will reach other lonely beings who yet are 
toiling on the great journey through life, and 
who will rest awhile by the roadside to listen 
to the voices of those that went before them, 
rising softly out of the Past. 


Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty 
at the Edinburgh University Press 
























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